Addressing the skills-jobs mismatch in the Philippines

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.

Note: Drafted as editorial for BusinessMirror, 12 June 2007

P OS TE D B Y DAVE L L O RITO AT 9 :43 PM

 "Public Health and GIS, Mismatch of Job Skills and Theoretical Training"

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;

McLafferty, 1998; Rushton & Frank, 1995).

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

geographic allocation of health resources.

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

changes. Based on emerging geospatial infrastructure in the twenty first century.

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

ability to integrate pieces of existing spatially-referenced information in unprecedented ways. Some go so

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

among educators (Boyer and Semrau, 1995).

Many geography educators hold that enhancing geography education must include integrating spatial

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

they need to implement GIS.

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

aggregate statistics could arise.

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)

Research Questions and Hypothesis

Statement of the Problem

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

helps/lacks in the training of the students.

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

address the spatial problems encountered in the workplace application?

Hypothesis

This study shall test the following null hypothesis:

Public Health Schools provide inadequate GIS education for the actual applications of spatial methods and
analysis in the public health sector.

Significance of the Study

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.

Scope and Limitation

 This study will discuss the weaknesses and strengths of the masteral spatial GIS education in the

public health setting, the factors affecting the efficiency and competence of the students in public health

GIS and the improvements that could be done.

Review of Related Literature

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.

Background of the Study

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a computer-aided database management and mapping

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,

and agricultural planning was quickly recognized and exploited.

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

preventive health services and to control the burden of disease.

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

years. (Cressie, 1990)

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

attributes. (Arbia, Griffith, and Haining, 1999)

GIS and Planning

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

incorporate resident, or local, knowledge.

Need for Spatial Statistical Tools

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

generalized beyond the specific database operation.

 Standard statistical packages, such as SPSS and SAS, can conduct these types of summaries

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

quantitative measures of spatial relationships such as dispersion, concentration, or spatial autocorrelation.

Spatial Analysis and Health

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

ignore uncertainty in locations.

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

requires concomitant development of spatial statistical methodology. Incorporation of attribute-error

analysis is often handled through geostatistics, but there is an urgent need for statistical research and

software developments to deal with both location error and attribute error (for example, Griffith, Haining,

and Arbia 1999).

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

different scales of spatial resolution.

The Need for GIS in Public Health

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,

1999; Haynes, Gale, Mugfort and Davies, 2001).

 GIS deployment trough the Internet is a relatively new technological development. The remarkable

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

Association of Country Clubs Off, 2002).

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,

water, and sanitation), and marketing).

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,

monitoring, and evaluation of health programs.

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.

GIS and Health Education

 As mapping is an excellent means of communication, GIS can be used, as Kabel (1990) suggests,

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,

decision-making, management and evaluation.

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

geographic access can be either area-based or distance-based (McLafferty, 1998).

Information Technology Readiness of the Education System

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

technology available in American classrooms (Donaldson, 2001).

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

spatial methods used in public health in school and practice.

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

unable to offer such a time commitment.

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

GIS expert or accreditation of GI courses has not yet ended.

Geographic Information Systems

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

still are little known and used in social work.

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).

Uses and Benefits of GIS in the Human Services

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

under welfare reform.

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

their use of GIS.

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

transportation system facilitated or hindered their access to services.

 The National Cancer Institute has developed an interactive map program that allows users to

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

closest hospital with more than 50 births per year.

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.

Geographic Information System Use in Public Health

 The systems link data generated from surveillance and public health information systems where

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

environmental factors such as soil, water, air and agricultural information

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

those having limited GIS skills and experience.

METHODS AND PROCEDURE

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.

Method of Research to be Used

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

conclusions and recommendations for the study.

The research described in this document is based fundamentally on quantitative research

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

from the original research plan.

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

skills or are they being taught on the job to use GIS.

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

have taken GIS courses in public health and educators in GIS.

 The secondary sources of data will come from published articles from Health and Information

Technology Journals, books and related studies on Public Health, GIS curriculum and instruction and GIS

application in the public health setting.

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

with GIS in the public health sector.

Respondents of the Study

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

implementation of the GIS employed in the organization.

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

4.50 – 5.00 Strongly Agree

3.50 – 4.00 Agree

2.50 – 3.49 Uncertain

1.50 – 2.49 Disagree

0.00 – 1.49 Strongly Disagree

Validation of the Instrument

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.

Administration of the Instrument

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.

Statistical Treatment of the Data

 When all the survey questionnaire will have been collected, the researcher will use statistics to

analyse all the data.

The statistical formulae to be used in the survey questionnaire will be the following:

1. Percentage – to determine the magnitude of the responses to the questionnaire.

% = -------- x 100 ; n – number of responses

N N – total number of respondents

2. Weighted Mean

f1x1 + f2x2 + f3x3 + f4x4 + f5x5

x = --------------------------------------------- ;

xt

where: f – weight given to each response

x – number of responses

xt – total number of responses

The researcher will be assisted by the SPSS in coming up with the statistical analysis for this study.

References

Aday, L. and Anderson, R. (1981) Equity of Access to Medical Care: A Conceptual and Empirical

Overview. Med. Care 19 Supp: 4-27.

Arbia, G., D. Griffith, and R. Haining (1998). "Error Propagation Modeling in Raster GIS: Overlay

Operations." International Journal of Geographic Information Science 12, 145-67.

Arbia, G., Griffith, D. and Haining, R. (1999) Error Propagation Modeling in Raster GIS:

Adding and Rationing Operations. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 26.
Armstrong, M.P., Rushton, G., & Lolonis, P. (1991). Relationships between the birth weights of Iowa

children and geographical accessibility to obstetrical care. Des Moines: Iowa Department of Public

Health.

Audit, R. and Paris, J. (1997) "GIS Implementation Model for Schools: Assessing the Critical

Concerns," Journal of Geography 96, no. 6 (November/December 1997): 293-300.

Bakker, M. de, and L. Bakker, 2000. Changes in GI education, EUGISES 2000, 7- 10 September,

Budapest, Hungary

Bosworth, M., & Donovan, J. (1998, October). A mapmaker's dream: Public involvement applications

utilization of GIS. Position paper presented at Project Varenius Specialist Meeting: Empowerment,

Marginalization, and Public Participation GIS, Santa Barbara, CA [On-line]. Available: [less

than]http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/varenius/ppgis/papers/[greater than].

Bowie, M. (1998) "Media Utilization in the Classroom," Drexel Library Quarterly 21, no. 2 (Spring 1985):

105-125; Paul C. Adams, "Teaching and Learning with SimCity 2000," Journal of Geography 97, no. 2

(March/April 1998): 47-55.

Boyer, B. and Semrau, P. (1995) "A Constructivist Approach to Social Studies: Integrating Technology,"

Social Studies and the Young Learner 7, no. 3 (January/February 1995): 14-16.

Conceicao-Runlee, S. and Padgett, D. (2000) DESIGNING A FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON

TECHNOLOGY: IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?. Journal of Social Work Education, Vol. 36.

Coulton, C. J., Korbin, J., Chan, T., & Su, M. (1997). Mapping resident perceptions of neighborhood

boundaries. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, Mandel School of Applied Social

Sciences, Center on Urban Policy and Social Change.

Coulton, C., Korbin, J., Su, M., & Chow, J. (1995). Community level factors and child maltreatment rates.

Child Development, 66, 1262-1276.

Craig, W. J., & Elwood, S. (1998). How and why community groups use maps and geographic

information. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 25(2), 95-104.

Cressie, N. (1990). "The Origins of Kriging." Mathematical Geology 22, 239-52.

Cressie, N. and Gabrosek, J. (2002) The effect on attribute prediction of location uncertainty in spatial

data. Geographical Analysis, Vol. 34.

Creswell, J.W. (1994) Research design. Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand Oaks,

California: Sage.

Croner, C. (2003) Public Health, GIS, and the Internet. Annu. Review of Public Health. 24:57-82.

Dillon, C. L., & Walsh, S. M. (1992). Faculty: The neglected resource in distance education. American

Journal of Distance Education, 6(3), 5-21.

Dolinoy, D., Miranda, ML., and Overstreet, A. 2002. Mapping for prevention: GIS models for directing

childhood lead poisoning prevention programs. Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 110.

Donaldson, D. (2001) WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Implementing Geographic

Information Systems (GIS) in K-12 Schools. Social Education, Vol. 65.

Donaldson, D.P. (1999) "Public High Schools' Ability to Support GIS: An Ohio Case Study," Geographical

Bulletin 41, no. 2 (November 1999): 91-102.

Drummond, W. (1995) Address matching: GIS technology for mapping human activity patterns. Journal of

the American Planning Association, Vol. 61.

Elwood, S., & Leitner, H. (1998). GIS and community-based planning: Exploring the diversity of

neighborhood perspectives and needs. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 25(2), 77-

88.

Faison, C. (1996) "Modeling Instructional Technology Use in Teacher Preparation: Why We Can't Wait,"

Educational Technology 36, no. 5 (September/October 1996): 57-59

Fortney, J. Rost, K., Zhang, M. and Warren, J. (1999) The Impact of Geographic Accessibility on the

intensity and Quality of Depression Treatment. Med Care 37: 884-93

Fuerstein, M.T. 1987. Partners in evaluation. leadership. ASEAN Training Centre for Primary Health

Care Development, 1(1), 34-35.

Geman, A., and D. Geman (1984). "Stochastic Relaxation, Gibbs Distributions, and the Bayesian

Restoration of Images." IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence PAMI-6,

721-41.

Giffords, E. D. (1998). Social work on the Internet: An introduction. Social Work, 43, 243-251.

Gingerich, W. J., & Green, R. K. (1996). Information technology: How social work is going digital. In

P. Raffoul & C. A. McNeece (Eds.), Future issues for

Goodchild, M. (1989). "Modeling Error in Objects and Fields." In The Accuracy of Spatial Databases, edited

by M. Goodchild and S. Gopal, pp. 107-13. London: Taylor & Francis.

Goodchild, M. (1990) "Spatial Information Science," Proceedings of the 4 th International Geographical

Union (Columbus, OH: 1990), 3-12.

Goodman, D. Fisher, E., Stukel, T and Chang, C. (1997) The Distance to Community Medical Care and

the Likelihood of Hospitalizations: Is closer always better? American Journal of Public Health 87: 144-

50
Griffith, D. A., R. P. Haining, and C. Arbia (1999). "Uncertainty and Error Propagation in Map Analyses

Involving Arithmetic Operations: Inventory and Prospec" In Spatial Accuracy Assessment: Land

Information Uncertainty in Natural Resources, edited by K. Lowell and A. Jaton, pp. 11-25. Chelsea,

Mich.: Ann Arbor Press.

Hanchette, C. 1998. GIS Implementation of 1997. CDC Guidelines for Childhood Lead Screening in North

Carolina. GIS in Public Helath, 3rd nAtional Conference San Diego, VA.

Harris, Britton, and Michael Batty. 1993. Locational Models, Geographic Information and Planning

Support Systems. Journal of Planning Education and Research 12,3:184-98.

Haynes, R., Bentham, G., Lovett, A. and Gale, S. (1999) Effects of Distances to Hospital and GP Surgery

on Hospital Inpatient Episodes Controlling for Needs and Provisions. Soc Sci Med. 49:425-33

Haynes, R., Gale, S., Mugfort, M., and Davies, P. (2001) Cataract surgey in a Community Hospital

Outreach Clinic: Patient Costs and Satisfaction. Soc Sci Med 53:1631-40.
Hirschfield, P., Brown, J. B., & Bundred, P. (1995). The spatial analysis of community health services on

Wirral using geographic information systems. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 46,

147-159.

Johnson, A. K. (1998, March). Globalization from below: The use of the Internet to internationalize social

work education. Paper presented at the Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work

Education, Orlando, FL.

Levine, N. (1996) Spatial statistics and GIS; software tools to quantify spatial patterns. Journal of the

American Planning Association, Vol. 62.

Longley, P.A. Goodchild, M.F., Maguire, DJ., Rhind, DW. (1999) Geographical Information Systems. New

York: Wiley, Second Edition.

Love, D., & Lindquist, P. (1995). The geographical accessibility of hospitals to the aged: A geographic

information systems analysis within Illinois. Health Services Research, 29, 629-651.
Maguire, D. J. (1991). An overview and definition of GIS. In D. J. Maguire, M. F. Goodchild, & D. w. Rhind

(Eds.), Geographical information systems: Principles and applications (Vol. 1: Principles, pp. 9-20).

New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Masser, I. and F.Toppen, 1992, Survey suggests GIS education trends in Europe, GIS Europe, pp 40- 43

McLafferty, S. 1998. GIS and Health Care. Annual Review of Public Health. Volume 24; pp 25-42.

Meyles, EW and de Bakker. (2002) Matching the supply of GIS educators with the demand of the GIS job

market. Third European GIS Education Seminar EUGISES, Girona, Spain, September.

Mohan, J. 1993. Healthy Indicators? Applications of Census Data in Health Care Planning. In Population

Matters: The Local Dimension (Eds) A Cahmpion, pp 136-149: Paul Chapman.

National Association Country City Health Office. (2002) Geographical Information Systems.
National Cancer Institute. (1992). State cancer control map and data system, version 8.4. Atlanta: Division

of Cancer Etiology, Clinical Epidemiology Branch.

Nellis, M.D. (1994) "Technology in Geography Education: Reflections and Future Directions," Journal

of Geography 93, no. 1 (January/February 1994): 36 39.

Petch, J.R., 2000, IT trends and GIS education and training, a white paper, EUGISES 2000, 7- 10

September, Budapest, Hungary

Queralt, M. and Witte, A. 1998. A map for you? Geographic information systems in the social services.

Social Work, Vol. 43.

Rushton, G., & Frank, S. (1995). Sharing spatial data among social scientists. In H. J. Onsrud & G.

Rushton (Eds.), Sharing geographic information (pp. 461-474). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers

University.
Rushton, G., Elmes, G. and McMaster, R. (2000). Considerations for Improving Geographic Information

Research in Public Health. Urban and Regional Information Systems Association Journal (March

2000).

Schervish, P. H. (1993). Information use by levels in human service organizations. Computers in

Human Services, 9, 397-408.

Scholten, H.J.; de Lepper, M.J.C. 1991. The benefits of the application of geographical information

systems in public and environmental health. WHO Statistical Quarterly, 44(3).

Siegel, J. (1995, May/June). The state of teacher training. Electronic Learning, pp. 43-53. social work

practice (pp. 19-28). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Sui, D. (1995) "A Pedagogical Framework to Link GIS to the Intellectual Core of Geography," Journal of

Geography 94, no. 6 (November/ December 1995): 578-591.

Taylor, J.R. 1982. An introduction to error analysis. Mill Valley, California: University Science Books.

Thurston, J., 2001, The New Geo-Jobs, Redefining Job Descriptions in the New Millennium,

Geoinformatics, pp 12-15
Tufte, Edwin R. 1983. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, CN: Graphics Press.

Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. 1994. 1994 Annual Conference Proceedings,

Volume II: Abstracts. Milwaukee, WI: Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. U.S.

Bureau of the Census. 1970.

Wain, R. (1993). The use of a geographical information system in locality profiling. Mapping Awareness,

7(8), 20-22.

World Health Organization. 2003. GIS and public health mapping. Communicable Disease Surveillance &

Response. World Health Report 2003.

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

products, such as maps, data tables and charts.

Health surveillance: the continuous, systematic use of routinely collected, non-identifiable health

data to guide public health action.

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

formatted. Metadata is essential for understanding information stored in data warehouses.

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

prevention and; health protection

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

collective or social actions.

 Spatial data: is data that has geographical reference to a specific location on Earth. Spatial data

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

determinants for visualization and analysis.

Read more: http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2011/04/thesis-chapter-1-

3-.html#ixzz1Q5W15GAF