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http://davidllorito.blogspot.com/2007/06/addressing-skills-jobs-mismatch-in.html
ONE of the main reasons why we can’t seem to make a dent on joblessness, according to Socioeconomic
Planning Secretary Romulo Neri, is that “many students are taking courses that will not land them jobs
needed by industries.”
He added that students who are entering college “should no longer take courses in political science,
education and law since there is already a significant surplus” in these fields. Industries supposedly need
more graduates in engineering, mining and information technology.
We can’t help but agree. If we want this country to move a lot faster, we need a critical mass of engineers,
mathematicians, software developers, physicists, and other fields in the sciences like biotechnology. These
courses are the ones that really bring in the money and progress, as shown by countries that invested
heavily in uplifting their school systems capability in mathematics and the sciences. We are talking here of
places like Israel, Taiwan, China, Vietnam and India.
But if indeed these courses do give high economic returns for graduates, why is it that only a few students
are taking up these subjects? There are several reasons.
First is that there is probably no market signal for students to take these courses, essentially because
parents and students are not really aware of economic opportunities in these disciplines. If this is true, one
reason is that there is no labor-market information system that could help students in making career
decisions.
In the United States, the government provides this kind of information by releasing a regular 10-year
forecast on potential labor demand vis-à-vis different careers in almost all areas of specialization from
teachers, engineers, journalists and doctors. The report, updated each year and posted on the Internet,
even provides estimates of the annual income that graduates would get if they take a certain discipline.
Why couldn’t we do the same? In the Philippine context, the government could do it in collaboration with
the private sector. Most business organizations in the country are members of chambers of commerce and
associations. Managers and HR officers in these companies could expedite this job-market information
system by regularly submitting their staff requirements from which their organizations could collate, analyze
and disseminate through media.
Second is that some schools are probably not providing the right sets of skills to students. Many schools
providing tertiary education are privately owned whose profit imperative may come in the way of providing
quality education.
There essentially is nothing wrong with a tertiary educational system dominated by the private sector. The
United States has that kind of system and all the world is flocking to American shores to study. It works
there because students and their parents have access to information regarding the quality of educational
services being offered by schools through a ranking system that economically penalizes those that don’t
have the right faculty, facilities and the learning environment.
We should have the same system in the Philippines. If schools and universities here are ranked based on
quality of services provided by course or disciplines by university, parents would only enroll their children
where they could get quality education in return for their hard-earned money. That way, schools and
universities would have the economic incentive to provide the best facilities, qualified faculty members and
the best learning environment for students.
Quality schools, of course, would have the tendency to charge high tuition, but this concern could be
addressed partially through competition by opening foreign direct investments in schools and universities.
Besides, who says quality education is cheap?
Financing education is really a major problem in the Philippines. Many private universities want to invest in
laboratories and faculty development. Yet they can only do that through expensive tuition, an option that is
constrained by low purchasing power.
The only way to address this is by setting up some kind of a student loan program where students could
pay the State later once they are able. Australia has that kind of system and Britain is learning from it. We
could probably have the same here.
The private sector could probably help. If society looks at education as an “investment” with very high rates
of return, why are banks not giving education loans to students who want to study “profitable” courses like
engineering and the sciences? In India for instance, banks lend money to engineering students and MBA
students, knowing that these kids would soon earn huge sums once they start working in high-tech
industries in Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Hyderabad.
The third factor: there are simply fewer people who can endure the rigors of science and engineering
courses. If this is true, then the problem goes back to the poor quality of basic education. The solution,
therefore, is reforming the elementary-schools system.
One possible solution is by strengthening subjects that really matter: mathematics, science, English and
Filipino with laboratories on said subjects. Longer school hours can be assigned to these subjects so the
students could have more time to learn new science or math concepts.
At the same time, there is an urgent need to train teachers in science, math and English. It is common
knowledge that for lack of science and math teachers, many current teachers in these subjects had
backgrounds in social studies, or even physical education. The government should also send these
teachers to scholarships for higher learning.
Reforming the elementary-school system would take some time. But we can also take a few shortcuts by
investing in science high schools. The local government units and the national government could do this
through a counterparting arrangement. With more science high schools in cities and the big municipalities,
we could probably increase the number of students who will eventually take science courses.
Definitely, the government will have to strengthen higher education as well. This can be done by
streamlining state colleges and universities—for instance, by closing some of them and consolidating
others to focus on science and technology and leaving the teaching of social sciences to private
universities. The Indians are doing this through their seven institutes of technologies and research
institutions where only the cream of the crop is taken as students. That explains their strength in the
sciences, engineering and information technology.
Abstract
The escalation of geographical information system (GIS) application in several fields such as
environment analysis has been progressive in relation to poverty, crime and education (Duecker and
DeLacey, 1990, Huxhold, 1991, Harris and Batty, 1993). However, public health lags behind these fields in
its use of GIS (Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, 1994). This limitation had largely
been highlighted in the literature (see Fuertstein, 1987; Drummond, 1995; National Association of Country
Clubs Off, 2002). However, the development of measures and strategies that could enhance GIS in public
health had been proposed in terms of location, area and even in data processing (Queralt and Witte, 1998;
The area of GIS and Public Health has risen to prominence in the past two years with the recognition that
health surveillance practices and health service allocations need to become more sensitive to the needs of
people in local geographic areas. The collection, storage and manipulation of geographic information have
undergone a revolution in recent years with the development and widespread availability of GIS software.
Many health professionals can benefit from further education in this area, and with their new knowledge,
they can influence the progress of health surveillance, environmental health assessment and the
This development provide a significant catalyst for the advancement of public health GIS and the
use of geospatial data through the Internet (Croner, 2003). They provide timely stimulus for the delivery of
public health geospatial information for community, state, and national uses. They portend important
A GIS can be a useful tool for health researchers and planners because health and ill-health are affected by
a variety of life-style and environmental factors, including where people live, characteristics of these
locations (including socio-demographic and environmental exposure) offer a valuable source for
epidemiological research studies on health and the environment. Scholten and Lepper (1991),
With the huge increase in the use by planners of geographic information systems (GIS), a need
has developed for accompanying statistical routines to aid in the analysis and interpretation of geographical
data particularly spatial analysis. (Levine, 1996) Many planners use GIS to isolate geographical areas,
subpopulations, land uses, and road systems according to various search criteria, extracting objects on the
basis of geographical or attribute conditions. The existing GIS packages are very sophisticated tools for
geographical and database operations. They can conduct a wide variety of different overlay operations:
creating buffers around objects, selecting objects by their proximity to other objects, unioning smaller
objects into bigger ones and splitting larger objects into smaller objects, as well as implementing a whole
range of database functions (e.g., conditional queries, object queries). (Levine, 1996)
The information contained in a GIS is not in itself unique. Rather, the uniqueness of GIS lies in its
far as to say that, based on the new perspectives offered by GIS, it might even constitute a new discipline
(Goodchild, 1990). Whether or not this is a realistic assessment, there is little doubt that GIS offers great
benefits in the constructivist, holistic model upon which it is based--a perspective that is gaining attention
technologies such as GIS (Nellis, 1994). GIS research has in turn expanded to include theoretical and
practical questions about its place in the framework of education, (Suit, 1995) since lack of such
understanding would undermine the potential of the tool itself (Donaldson, 1999). Likewise, if GIS is to
evolve into a significant force in education, more thought needs to be given to how it is implemented and
used in classrooms. Most geography educators concur that successful GIS implementation will not be
possible without a combination of (1) acknowledgment of its usefulness by teachers and administrators; (2)
a concomitant level of financial support for this technology; (3) the provision of teacher training; and (4) the
creation of networks to supply teachers and administrators with the entry-level and advanced information
This study shall investigate the disparity in terms of the curriculum of spatial methods in the
Masteral level and what is taught in Schools of Public Health using GIS (geographic information systems)
and what employers, particularly in the Public Health sector both private and public expect these students
to be able to do using spatial analysis tools competency. Moreover, this study shall include the state and
local public health offices, public health research firms, and GIS educators in order to determine if their
employees coming out of these schools possess the necessary skills or are they being taught on the job to
use GIS.
Conceptual Framework
This paper shall utilize the mathematical modeling by Arbia, G., Griffith, D. and Haining, R. (1999).
The purpose of adopting this approach using maps and error processes with simple but well-defined
properties is to understand better how different elements of the situation, individually and together,
contribute to the final propagated error. The problem with using real maps (rather than artificially generated
maps) is that real maps usually have complex structures so that it may not be clear the extent to which
aggregate statistics computed to measure the severity of the error problem are an aggregation across
many types of quite different map segments with different structures. Usually, real errors are not known for
any data set, and unless their structure is uniform across the map, the same problem for interpreting
Using formal mathematical modeling, rather than just simulation, means that where theoretical
results can be obtained they can be used to check simulation output before the simulation is used to obtain
properties that are not accessible to mathematical analysis. Furthermore it is only through formal
mathematical modeling, leading to closed-form expressions, that a rigorous study can be undertaken that
yields quantitative and qualitative insights as to how different elements contribute individually or
interactively to error propagation. The formal expressions make the contributions explicit, and regression
(adding maps) and ANOVA (rationing) are used to quantify the relative contributions of each term in the
expression. Where theoretical results have not been obtained, as in the case of rationing, simulation alone,
even with regression analysis of the outputs cannot produce the same quality of evidence because of the
dangers of model misspecification in using regression. (Arbia, G., Griffith, D. and Haining, R., 1999)
This proposed paper shall evaluate the spatial analysis models and in the public health sector and
shall be compared to what is taught in the masteral level. Essentially, the study shall focus on the problems
encountered in the spatial modeling and planning in the public health and how the education system
Specifically, two questions shall be answered: (1) What are the problems, factors and challenges
facing the public health sector in GIS spatial modeling and how does the training of the masteral students
addresses this problem? (2) Can the masteral training of the public health practitioners support and
Hypothesis
Public Health Schools provide inadequate GIS education for the actual applications of spatial methods and
analysis in the public health sector.
This study shall determine the workplace practice and application of geographic information system
(GIS) in the public health sector and how the education provided in the academe is
compatible/incompatible with the actual practice of spatial analysis. Furthermore, this study shall illustrate
the importance of spatial modeling and planning in the training of masteral level students in solving the
spatial problems encountered in the workplace. This will be beneficial to educators, students and GIS
practitioners alike in determining the capabilities that are required in the public health sector.
public health setting, the factors affecting the efficiency and competence of the students in public health
This chapter shall present the related studies and researches in the areas of GIS in health planning, spatial
analysis in GIS, the disparity between spatial training in education and in the public health workplace.
These data shall be utilized as a background of the research and shall provide the measures and the
supporting data regarding the spatial analysis of GIS in the health sector. This section shall be divided into
three areas: the introduction of GIS and GIS in the health sector, the need for spatial tools in addressing the
problems in GIS mapping, modeling and planning and the disparity in the educational training of students in
spatial methods.
technology that organizes and stores large amounts of multi-purpose information. GIS adds the dimension
of geographic analysis to information technology by providing an interface between the data and a map.
This makes it easy to present information to key decision-makers quickly, efficiently and effectively.
Geographic information systems and remote sensing from earth-observing satellites are
sophisticated and powerful technologies that are finding applications far beyond those originally intended.
According to the World Health Organization (2003), both are products of the Cold War developed by the
departments of defense for military purposes. Together, they allow near real-time access to data on
temperature, soil, elevation, patterns of land use, and phases of vegetation in addition to the precise
geographic location of water bodies, population centers, buildings, roads, and other infrastructure. Their
use for purposes ranging from the search for natural resources to transportation engineering, urban design,
With the geographic information system, observations regarding the social, economic, political, and
physical environments can be referenced to a common geospatial data framework (Rushton, Elmes and
McMaster, 2000). This permits varying organizations to share spatial data regarding these phenomena.
Geographic information science has the potential to create rich information databases, linked to methods of
spatial analysis, to determine relationships between geographical patterns of disease distribution and social
and physical environmental conditions. As the core of a decision-support system, geographic information
science also has the potential to change the way that allocations of resources are made to facilitate
Geographic information systems and remote sensing have capabilities that are ideally suited for
use in infectious disease surveillance and control, particularly for the many vector-borne neglected
diseases that are often found in poor populations in remote rural areas (WHO, 2003). They are also highly
relevant to meet the demands of outbreak investigation and response, where prompt location of cases,
rapid communication of information, and quick mapping of the epidemic’s dynamics are vital. However, until
recently, the use of these tools in public health were largely limited in use due to two major problems: the
prohibitive cost of hardware and the great complexity of GIS software that made it extremely time-
consuming as well as costly to extract information relevant to the practical demands of disease prevention
and control.
Map Errors
A datum is considered spatial if it contains location information. (Cressie and Gabrosek, 2002)
Typically, there is also attribute information, whose distribution depends on its location. Thus, error in
location information can lead to error in attribute information, which is reflected ultimately in the inference
drawn from the data. Data are considered spatial if they contain location information. Typically, there is also
attribute information available. The distribution of the attribute varies from location to location. Attribute
information consists of the measured response (or responses), which can be either discrete (for example,
counts of animal populations) or continuous (for example, soil pH). With the advent of optimal spatial linear
prediction (that is, kriging), the analysis of spatially dependent data has progressed rapidly in the past forty
The study of map error and map error propagation raises a distinct set of problems that go beyond
traditional error analysis (Taylor 1982). Map data consist of attributes recorded at locations and, with the
exception of lines of discontinuity such as shorelines and urban/rural boundaries, attribute values at
adjacent locations are often similar (spatially correlated) because of the continuity of ground truth. The error
processes that can contaminate map data also raise new problems. Attribute measurement error may not
be independent between adjacent locations and there may be errors in specifying the locations of
Another way to ensure a more bottom-up approach to GIS is to focus on the incorporation of local
knowledge in GIS. There are a few examples of this in the context of planning. Some researchers (Craig &
Elwood, 1998; Elwood & Leitner, 1998) have attempted to incorporate local knowledge in the building of
GIS databases, working to incorporate value-based, traditionally intangible information, such as how
residents value their homes or their feelings about the uniqueness of a given area (Bosworth & Donovan,
1998). Because these approaches seek to give local residents greater access to GIS, they are aligned with
other community-based uses of GIS (Elwood & Leitner, 1998). However, they also add the attempt to
The lack of spatial statistical tools hinders planners, who often deal with a spatial relationship
between one set of objects and another that should be considered quantitatively rather than qualitatively.
(Levine, 1996) For example, housing experts may want to compare the socio-economic characteristics of
areas that do or do not contain public housing projects, or transportation planners may want to relate traffic
volume measurements to characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood. Standard GIS packages can
quantify some aspects of this by, for example, assigning a census tract's median household income to a
housing project, or by associating a particular road segment having high traffic volumes with the number of
families in the surrounding traffic analysis zone (TAZ). However, such relationships cannot easily be
much more easily than can the GIS programs. In addition, generalizing the results beyond the specific data
requires a set of inferential testing procedures and a statistical theory. (Leviune, 1996)
Furthermore, although displaying the results of a distribution on a map can be informative, its
usefulness is limited. All kinds of distortions are produced by visual display; Tufte's classic work illustrates
this wonderfully (Tufte 1983). It is very hard to look at a distribution and say whether it is similar to or
different from another. Then, too, since most mapping programs are two-dimensional, a visual display can
be overwhelmed by a large amount of data. In short, there are limits to database operations and to visual
display. Spatial statistics allows for degrees of quantification and inference that are much more rigorous
and less prone to misinterpretation. Neither the existing GIS programs nor statistical packages provide
Geographers have attempted to account for location uncertainty. When creating maps, location is
of paramount interest. At the other extreme, many statistical analyses take no account of location, modeling
data as if it were statistically independent. Geostatistics is between these extremes. Geostatisticians use
location to model trend and correlation between attribute values over a geographic region; however, they
The advent and then ubiquity of geographic information systems (GIS) has led to an explosion of
information available from spatial databases. The easy storage and quick retrieval possible within a GIS
software developments to deal with both location error and attribute error (for example, Griffith, Haining,
Geographers and users of raster-based GIS often model the effects of location error in spatial data by
assuming that the attribute value is discrete (often a gray-scale value) and that the spatial domain is a fixed
grid of pixels. A commonly used model for the Bayesian restoration of images, attributed to Geman and
Geman (1984), has been adapted by researchers working with GIS to investigate how errors in source
maps propagate through a GIS to output maps (for example, Goodchild 1989; Arbia, Griffith, and Haining
1998). Output maps result from overlay operations that combine two or more source maps at potentially
Access to health care is an important issue across populations who face substantial barriers in
obtaining care, and health care policies and imperatives affected by the location, quality, and quantity of
services available with concomitant effects on access. Access describes people’s ability to use health
services when and where they are needed (Aday and Anderson, 1981). Furthermore, health care decisions
are strongly influenced by the type and quality of services available in the local area and the distance, time,
cost, and ease of traveling to reach those services (Goodman, Fisher, Stukel and Chang, 1999; Haynes,
Bentham Lovett and Gale, 1999). For medical conditions that require regular contact with service providers,
travel, time and distance can create barriers to effective service use (Fortney, Rost, Zhang and Warren,
increase in use of the Internet is creating new standards, and challenges, for the efficient use of the Web-
based geospatial applications (Longley, Goodchild, Maguire and Rhind, 1999). GIS and Web technologies
offer emerging opportunities to analyze complex geospatial data, solve problems, and present data in a
graphical format that public health decision makers and the public can easily see and understand (National
The application field and objectives of a GIS can be varied, and concern a great number of
questions linking social and physical problems (transport and agricultural planning, environment and natural
resources management, location/allocation decisions, facilities and service planning (education, police,
Generally, the objectives of a GIS are the management (acquisition, storage, maintenance),
analysis (statistical, spatial modeling), and display (graphics, mapping) of geographic data. Even if a few
general concepts are presented, the GIS discussed here will be seen from a health perspective. Thus, GIS
will be considered as a tool to assist in health research, in health education, and in the planning,
As health is largely determined by environmental factors (including the sociocultural and physical
environment, which vary greatly in space), it always has an important environmental and spatial dimension.
The spatial modeling capacities offered by GIS can help one understand the spatial variation in the
incidence of disease, and its covariation with environmental factors and the health care system.
to help prepare educational materials. In an article on participatory evaluation, M.T. Fuerstein (1987)
describes different methods for monitoring and evaluating community health projects, including mapping.
Fuerstein (1987) suggested that maps, showing location of houses by number and type, public and private
buildings, water sources, sanitation, bridges, roads, social centers, neighborhood boundaries, health
centers, etc. give participants a wider view of where they are living. Maps can help discussion, analysis,
Meyles and de Bakker (2002) conducted a study dealing with demand of employers for Geo-
information specialists and the supply of educational institutes. They asserted that there is a need for a
clear definition of a geo-information specialist with according content of the geo-information curricula. It
needed to distinguish education into to two or three different GIS expert groups.
The situation has changed dramatically over the past few years. Hardware prices have plummeted,
simple new devices are now available, and a new generation of civilian satellites is in orbit, circling the
world. The Public Health Mapping Programme based within WHO Communicable Diseases has been
developed with the goal of providing greater access to simple, low-cost geographic information and related
data management and mapping systems to public health administrators at all levels of the health system
(WHO, 2003).
Geographic Information Systems is also being used to map and explore variation in need for
healthy services and to develop innovative indicators of health care needs (McLafferty, 1998). GIS has
been used for many years to link diverse layers of populati0on and environmental information to
characterize the many dimensions of health care needs for small areas (Hanchette, 1998; Mohan, 1993).
According to McLafferty, in effect they are restricted to predefined geographical areas such as countries or
zip codes, but in the future such as systems will likely incorporate GIS-based procedures that allow users to
query data for user-defined areas. GIS has an important role in assessing health care needs for small
areas by facilitating the spatial linking of diverse health, social and environmental data sets.
As digital information on morbidity, demographics and utilization becomes more widely available,
health needs data will be incorporated in GIS-based decision support tools that allow communities and
decision-makers to examine questions of health and needs, access and availability. Measures of
The commitment to produce geographically-competent students has been the constant driving
force in geography education. Yet, as its proponents enjoy the rebirth of geography education, they must
also acknowledge that--while the subject matter of geography education may have remained similar over
time--the modes by which geographic concepts are learned and taught in the classroom have changed,
often significantly. Indeed, while geography education has returned to the school classroom, it has come
back in the context of a society that expects learning to be accomplished in concert with modern learning
technologies, chiefly the computer. But obstacles are posed by wide differences in the variety of computer
Among the most exciting developments in geography education today is the geographic information system
(GIS), a tool that enables students to examine layers of geography in ways that can reveal fascinating and
unique patterns and processes (Donaldson, 1999, 2001; Meyles and de Bakker, 2002; Thurston, 2001).
Yet, the world a GIS can illustrate is being obscured by numerous barriers to its implementation
(Donaldson, 1999, 2001; Meyles and de Bakker, 2002). Successful use of GIS in classrooms depends not
only on the requisite hardware and software infrastructures, but also on a host of institutional and personal
information networks. This article draws on survey research to identify the most significant infrastructures in
Minimal attention has been directed to the essential components of a faculty development technology
program (Dillon & Walsh, 1992). The literature on social work distance education has focused primarily on
program design, evaluation, and logistics. Basic skills training allows faculty to understand the potential
application of technology and encourages the use of available resources and tools.
While one aspect of developing technological expertise involves mastering the technical skills required to
use various software programs, an equally time-intensive task includes translating those skills to a specific
course or curriculum content (Siegel, 1995). Technology can add new resources to existing course content
in traditional classroom settings. For instance, the Internet enhances the range of information available to
students in addition to providing opportunities for international communication (Giffords, 1998; Johnson,
1998).
The demand for increased integration of technology can emanate from students, professional or
organizational expectations, and advances in the application of technology to social work practice. As
students become more familiar with technology, they may begin to expect online access to reading
materials, syllabi, and other resources. With advances in distance education technology, the profession
may be expected to be responsive to students in remote areas without access to traditional institutions
(Kalke, et al., 1998). As technology becomes more integrated into professional practice, social workers will
need to be skilled in various aspects of information technology (Giffords, 1998; Gingerich & Green, 1996;
Schervish, 1993).
The demand for technological literacy from students requires that faculty be
technologically competent to respond to this demand. While for some people, and in certain
situations, the demand for technological literacy may be very compelling, for other individuals
and in other situations this demand may not be sufficiently compelling to motivate learning
(Conceicao-Runlee and Padgett, 2000). Faculty may be willing to invest time in retooling, but be
The demand for GIS experts is growing steadily, along with the increased need for digital
geographic data. However, there is no widely excepted definition of a GIS expert (e.g. Thurston, 2001), and
also no definition what the current contents of the education to fit the demands should be. The discussion
involving the education curriculum, the reaction of employers and the possible need for a certification of the
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are computer systems for capturing, storing, manipulating,
analyzing, displaying, and integrating spatial (that is, geographical, or locational) and nonspatial (that is,
statistical, or attribution) information (Maguire, 1991). Although professionals in various technical fields (for
example, geology, geography, and urban planning) have been using GIS since the 1960s, these techniques
GIS software allows a social agency to produce meaningful, attention-grabbing maps that visually
show important administrative, policy, and practice issues (Queralt and Witte, 1998). The software also
makes it possible for administrators and practitioners to uncover new insights. For example, gaps in
service delivery, areas of low service take-up rates, transportation problems, and location of areas of new
demand for services. GIS software can also help social agencies communicate more effectively to clients
the spectrum of choices available, an issue of increasing importance as the use of vouchers becomes more
prevalent in the delivery of services. In short, GIS software gives social services agencies a powerful new
way to analyze services in relation to clients and to the communities in which they operate (Queralt and
Witte, 1998).
Being able to place agency records on a map gives management and staff a whole new way of
looking at data that may reveal patterns never discovered before (Queralt and Witte, 1998). Specifically,
GIS can improve day-to-day practice and management decisions by providing tools to inventory, through
maps, the agency's clientele, services, or any other information of interest; to assess the sociodemographic
characteristics of the neighborhoods served by the agency; to assess whether the supply of services in a
given community is adequate and appropriate for the target population and to forecast need or demand for
additional services, given changes in the policy environment, such as the vast changes now taking place
One of the major reasons for this relative neglect is the difficulty of generating accurate, timely, and
inexpensive locational information for human activities. Recently, however, the use of low-cost GIS software
for generating such data has become a realistic option. Address matching (also known as geocoding
(Drummond, 1995), is a very powerful GIS technology: it can convert any administrative, survey, or
business database with street addresses into a GIS database containing locational information. The
resulting database can then be either displayed as a pin map, aggregated into regions and displayed as a
thematic map, combined with U.S. census information and other available GIS data, or used as input into
the full range of advanced GIS procedures for spatial analysis (Drummond, 1995).
GIS also can be a useful research tool. Most researchers have been limited in their ability to
analyze data to the levels that correspond to the geographic identifiers that are normally part of available
data sets, such as state, county, city, or zip codes (Queralt and Witte, 1998). GIS has opened the possibility
of studying small areas, such as census tracts or blocks, and of aggregating data to create new units of
analysis, such as neighborhoods, school districts, or mental health catchment areas. This increased
flexibility in the creation of geographic areas for planning and analysis is likely to yield more accurate
answers to research questions and to result in better delivery of services (Rushton & Frank, 1995).
There is little documentation in the published literature of the use of GIS in the field of social work.
What little evidence exists at present points to its use for research-related purposes rather than direct
practice or administration (Coulton, Korbin, Chan, & Su, 1997; Coulton, Korbin, Su, & Chow, 1995).
Professionals in related fields, particularly health, urban and regional planning, and criminal justice, appear
to be using GIS more than in social work, although at present, few have published articles documenting
Love and Lindquist (1995) used GIS to assess the geographical accessibility of hospitals to elderly
people in Illinois by measuring and displaying the distance old people traveled from their homes in each of
the 10,796 census block groups in Illinois to the state's 214 hospital facilities. In northwest England,
Hirschfield, Brown, and Bundred (1995) used GIS to plan and develop community-based health services.
With the help of GIS, they mapped the location of general medical practitioners and local clinics, services
provided by each, and residential location of patients who used these services. Thus, they were able to
identify catchment areas for different services, to assess differences between the more affluent and poorer
areas in the manner in which primary health care services were delivered, and to determine how far
patients needed to travel to services (both in terms of distance and travel time) and how much the local
construct county-level maps illustrating the geographic distribution of cancer mortality by age, gender, or
race (National Cancer Institute, 1992). Wain (1993) discussed how to use GIS in locality profiling. By
mapping the location of problems of concern in specific localities (for example, health care problems such
as high levels of infant mortality), one can develop a service strategy that is sensitive to the needs of the
community. Similarly, she suggested, if one is concerned about the possible effects of a particular
environmental hazard, such as an expressway, one can create, with the help of GIS, a map showing a
butter zone around the hazardous area and then study the health experiences of people living in this area,
compared with others living elsewhere. Armstrong, Rushton, and Lolonis (1991) used GIS to study the
geographic distribution of low-birth weight babies in Iowa and its relationship to factors such as the distance
from the mother's home to the closest doctor, to the closest hospital with obstetric services, and to the
Because creating a GIS system can take considerable time and effort, the first step in this process
is to make sure that the data to be mapped is up-to-date, accurate, and complete. Prior to placing records
on a map, referred to as "pin-mapping" or "geo-coding," it is wise to spend time cleaning up and updating
records.
After records to be mapped have been cleaned up, the next step is to save them in a database
format compatible with the GIS software package to be used. Having put records in the appropriate
database format for the GIS software chosen, the user is ready to create maps for each geographic area
served by the agency. These maps will serve as "containers" in which pin-mapped records are kept.
their common reference points are geographic locations such as regional health areas, enumeration areas
or postal codes. GIS tools enable health workers to examine health effects and environmental determinants
by layering on a series of maps: population demographics, political and administrative boundaries and
Health professionals in local/regional, and provincial/territorial public health offices need direct
access via the Internet to user-friendly and cost-effective GIS, spatial data and metadata. We have worked
with public health regions to develop a GIS Infrastructure that supports the spatial information needs of
regional public health programs in their evidence-based planning and decision-management practices. The
GIS tools and training are designed according to the needs of a broader range of health workers including
This chapter shall discuss the research methods available for the study and what is applicable for it to use.
Likewise, the chapter shall present how the research will be implemented and how to come up with
pertinent findings.
This study shall use the descriptive research method which uses observation and surveys. In this
method, it is possible that the study would be cheap and quick. It could also suggest unanticipated
hypotheses. Nonetheless, it would be very hard to rule out alternative explanations and especially infer
causations. This descriptive type of research will utilize observations in the study. To illustrate the
descriptive type of research, Creswell (1994) will guide the researcher when he stated: Descriptive method
of research is to gather information about the present existing condition. The purpose of employing this
method is to describe the nature of a situation, as it exists at the time of the study and to explore the
cause/s of particular phenomena. The researcher opted to use this kind of research considering the desire
of the researcher to obtain first hand data from the respondents so as to formulate rational and sound
methods. This permits a flexible and iterative approach. During data gathering the choice and design of
methods are constantly modified, based on ongoing analysis. This allows investigation of important new
issues and questions as they arise, and allows the investigators to drop unproductive areas of research
This study basically intends to investigate the disparity in what is taught in Schools of Public Health
using GIS (geographic information systems) and what employers, particularly in the Public Health sector
both private and public expect these students to be able to do using spatial analysis in GIS. Specifically,
this study shall discuss the state and local public health offices, public health research firms, and GIS
educators in order to determine if their employees coming out of these schools possess the necessary
The primary source of data will come from a researcher-made questionnaire and interviews
conducted by the researcher among employees and personnel in the public health sector, students who
Technology Journals, books and related studies on Public Health, GIS curriculum and instruction and GIS
For this research design, the researcher will gather data, collate published studies from different local and
foreign universities and articles from social science journals; and make a content analysis of the collected
documentary and verbal material. Afterwards, the researcher will summarize all the information, make a
conclusion based on the null hypotheses posited and provide insightful recommendations on the dealing
The general population for this study will be composed of selected personnel in the public health
sector, GIS students and GIS instructors numbering to 60 respondents. The researcher shall also provide
interviews for public health managers whose function is directly related to the organisation and
Instruments to be Used
To determine the effects of GIS education in the public health sector, the researcher will prepare a
questionnaire and a set of guide questions for the interview that will be asked to the intended respondents.
The respondents will grade each statement in the survey-questionnaire using a Likert scale with a five-
response scale wherein respondents will be given five response choices. The equivalent weights for the
answers will be:
Range Interpretation
For validation purposes, the researcher will initially submit a sample of the set of survey questionnaires and
after approval; the survey will be conducted to five respondents. After the questions were answered, the
researcher will ask the respondents for any suggestions or any necessary corrections to ensure further
improvement and validity of the instrument. The researcher will again examine the content of the interview
questions to find out the reliability of the instrument. The researchers will exclude irrelevant questions and
will change words that would be deemed difficult by the respondents, to much simpler terms.
The researcher will exclude the five respondents who will be initially used for the0 validation of the
instrument. The researcher will also tally, score and tabulate all the responses in the provided interview
questions. Moreover, the interview shall be using a structured interview. It shall consist of a list of specific
questions and the interviewer will not deviate from the list or inject any extra remarks into the interview
process. The interviewer may encourage the interviewee to clarify vague statements or to further elaborate
on brief comments. Otherwise, the interviewer will be objective and not influence the interviewee's
statements. The interviewer will not share his/her own beliefs and opinions. The structured interview will
mostly be a "question and answer" session.
The statistical formulae to be used in the survey questionnaire will be the following:
2. Weighted Mean
x = --------------------------------------------- ;
xt
x – number of responses
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Appendix 1
Definition of Terms
Geographic Information System (GIS): It is a system that uses computers to enter, store,
manage, analyze and present spatial data. The system brings together databases and graphics to make
Health surveillance: the continuous, systematic use of routinely collected, non-identifiable health
Information management: the ways that data are managed, analyzed and used.
Metadata: is descriptive information about each data set stored in the Spatial Data Warehouse.
Metadata describes how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, updated and
Public health: the science and practice of protecting and improving the health of a community
through: population health assessment; health surveillance; health promotion; disease and injury
Public health professionals: people who provide programs and services, or work in an
institution, that emphasize the prevention of disease and the health needs of the population as a whole.
Working together, public health professionals maintain and improve the health of all people through
is stored in the Spatial Data Warehouse including examples such as hospital locations, regional health area
boundaries and more. Spatial data serves to link information to diseases, health risks and health