Global health and cartography: French and Brazilian perspectives
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Chasles, V.; 2de Biaggi, E.; 3Vizeu Barrozo, L.
1EQUIPE SIS - UNIVERSITE JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 Email: chaslesvirginie@yahoo.fr
2UMR 5600 EVS - UNIVERSITE JEAN MOULIN LYON 3 Email: lecadb@hotmail.com
3FFLCH - UNIVERSIDADE DE SAO PAULO Email: lija@usp.br
Abstract
Most research on health issues, particularly on environmental health, have been using geographical tools and methods, especially GIS (Geo-graphic Information Systems) that can stock, analyze and visualize spa-tially related data. As it is based on locating available data such as health indexes (morbidity and mortality indexes), risk factors (envi-ronmental exposition), socio-demographic data it is able to better access population environmental quality. But major methodological challenges in environmental health remains, in Brazil as well as in France concerning this cartographical approach. This has led to an exchange programme between the universities of São Paulo and Lyon, aiming to discuss cartographic methods used in health geography in both countries. The common use of various databases formed with different logics implies working with different spatial units thought in different time scales. Choosing the right aggregation of data and the better spatial and time scale to treat health issues can be difficult. For example, as effects are rarely immediate because most of the times there is a latent effect (sometimes 20 to 30 year long for some cases of cancer), we need to rebuild the whole length of the exposition period. This means that it is necessary to adapt classical epidemiologic approaches, coming from for the expensive and mostly partial biological analysis available and eventually use environmental quality indexes that helps us determine vulnerable population in order to create representative sample analysis. On the other hand, using cartography and GIS implies crossing different information, to analyze their interaction and to help indicate spatial patterns, but new representation methods are necessary to guarantee that information is precisely located. The use of dasymetric representations has been a means to enhance local comprehension of life conditions as well as creating new perspectives to calculate favorable human development index such as urban densities and other structures favoring healthy behavior. Specially in peri-urban areas, where most maps are deficient, an effort to better represent sensible data still needs to be done. As a means to measure the impact spatial planning has in city health, describing and analyzing the urban characteristics that impoverishes population health, with a particular attention to social-spatial inequalities, are major issues for both countries.
Keywords
global health cartography; time/spatial scale analysis; visualisation methods