1. MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS FOR HIV/AIDS PREVENTION & TREATMENT SERVICES Carla E. Stokes, MPH Larry M. Gant, CSW, PhD CARAT/Rackham Information Technology Fellowship Meeting February 11, 2002

3. THE HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN There are 13,000 HIV-infected persons in MI (including Persons living with AIDS) Each year, the majority of Michigan’s new HIV/AIDS cases occur in Wayne County There is a profound racial disparity in the distribution of HIV/AIDS cases

4. WHAT IS GIS? (GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS) A GIS is a computer system for analyzing and mapping almost anything A GIS allows geographically distributed data to be integrated with computer assisted mapping, design, and geographic analysis

5. WHY USE GIS? uMaps are efficient at communicating geographic information uMapping gives users the ability to analyze data in a clear, convenient, and easy to comprehend form uMaps illustrate geographic relationships

6. MICROSOFT EXCEL DATABASE

7. MORE THAN ONE DATABASE CAN BE LINKED

8. WHY USE GIS IN PUBLIC HEALTH? uGIS has an important role in public health uVariation in health and health care needs are influenced by a variety of factors uAbility to convey information visually uAbility to geographically link health data with population characteristics, environmental conditions, and health care

13. USES OF GIS FOR CURRENT STUDY Examination of health statistics (i.e.- disease rates) by geographic area Examination of use of health services to assist with resource allocation and needs assessment Analysis of the spatial distribution of health care facilities to assist in location of health services Disease surveillance Planning HIV/AIDS related prevention and treatment services

14. METHODOLOGY Completed software training in Arc View GIS Located boundary file maps (street and zipcode) of Detroit Secured access to confidential HIV/AIDS surveillance databases Converted HIV/AIDS surveillance data –from SAS to TXT to Excel to Dbase IV Used SPSS to generate HIV/AIDS counts by zip codes Created map layers in ArcView

15. HIV/AIDS CASES BY ZIP CODE USING ARC VIEW 3.2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN Confidential data to be released Summer 2002

16. FUTURE DIRECTIONS Merge with Census 2000 data Incorporate substance abuse data Merge STD data bases Spatial statistical analysis of data Map trends over time