About the Center
This collaboration between The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston – School of Public Health (UTHealth) and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) is a part of the UTHealth and MD Anderson Population Health Collaborative.
The environment and context where individuals live, work and play are increasingly recognized as key factors for overall health and wellness, including the risk of chronic disease. Within the last decade, emergent technological capacity in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial data science has resulted in a growing research community developing and applying geospatial approaches in health research and practice.
The Joint Center on Geospatial Analysis & Health (JCoGA&H) was created to conduct and deploy focused geospatial analysis to:
- Build consensus on shared strategic impact priorities in population health and health equity
- Enhance access to spatial analysis essential to research, policy analysis, and public health practice
- Directly enable researchers, public health practitioners, and community-based organizations in Greater Houston, across the State of Texas, and nationally to utilize spatial analysis to improve and inform their work in population health
- Democratize geospatial data to generate synergy in geospatial data science to improve population health and address health disparities
Core Functionalities
- Provide state-of-the-art geospatial data analysis and visualization expertise to support chronic disease prevention and control research and practice
- Provide customized geospatial support to community-based organizations and build community capacity in geospatial technology
- Establish the strategic and operational structure for a best-in-class strategic resource core in geospatial data analysis and visualization
How to get involved
If you are interested working with us or in receiving spatial analysis consultation, please contact geospatial@mdanderson.org. For those interested in collaboration, please complete this survey.
Meet our Team
JCoGA&H brings together a multi-disciplinary team of practitioners, researchers, and subject matter experts in public health and health systems research and practice, spatial data expertise, health disparities research, community and stakeholder engagement, and health data informatics. Utilizing this multi-PI governance structure with deep experience in Texas, across the United States, and globally creates a highly-collaborative, solution-focused environment in which learning applied to practice, inclusion of communities, partners, and learners, and capacity building in spatial analysis to advance health are pursued through a team science model:
Founding Co-Directors / Multi-Principal Investigators
Core Operational Team
- Stephanie Nutt, MA, MPA
- Marcita Galindez, MPH
- Travis Anthony, MSDS
Community Partners
Engagement of community stakeholders throughout the development of JCoGA&H represents a differentiating feature of this work, as it ensures that the solutions we provide capture and present information that is relevant and accessible to stakeholders who seek to address chronic disease burden and other health challenges. Working in partnership with communities with limited access to services and resources for health, JCoGA&H leverages several key networks comprised of community-based organizations, clinical providers, and public health practitioners. JCoGA&H interacts intentionally with multiple stakeholders across the region and state, as well as nationally, to advance understanding and application of the environment and context where people live, work and play as key factors in understanding and transforming overall health and wellness.
Noteworthy current or recent products, analyses and collaborations include:
- Texas Dashboard for Social Vulnerability (Census Tract)
- Texas Dashboard for CDC Places Data (Census Tract)
- Multi-level Analyses for Prioritized Place-based Community Investments
- Texas Melanoma Stage at Diagnosis and Geospatial Persistent Poverty
- County-Level Social Vulnerability and Breast, Cervical, and Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates in the US, 2018
- Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and Factors Associated with Delayed Initiation of Treatment for Breast Cancer
- Lymphoma Clinical Trial Participant Mapping Against SDOH and Environmental Factors for Diagnosis
- Texas Health Equity Alliance for Breast Cancer
- Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) Prevention Program Assessment in partnership with Texas Health Institute
Texas-Specific Dashboard of CDC PLACES Data
How to use our Texas-Specific CDC Places Dashboard
Note 1: This mapping dashboard should be viewed on a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen, not a tablet. It may take some time to load when it’s opened for the first time, but will run smoothly shortly thereafter as the cache memory of your browser adjusts. It works best using the Google Chrome browser.
Note 2: This dashboard uses the newly released CDC PLACES database to identify high disease burden areas and vulnerable populations throughout the state of Texas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) PLACES Project (launched in December, 2020) provides small area estimates (SAE) on 27 chronic disease measures:
- 5 measures related to unhealthy behaviors
- 13 health outcomes
- 9 preventive services
The data sources that generate these measures include the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data, Census Bureau population data, and American Community Survey (ACS) estimates. SAEs are displayed at the census-tract level for 2018.
According to CDC, the PLACES project will be updated in the future and may add more measures (e.g., fruit and vegetable consumption) on the basis of CDC public health priorities, public interests, and funding resources.
Note 3:To cite use of Texas-Specific Dashboard of CDC Places Data, please use the following citation: UTHealth-MD Anderson Joint Center on Geospatial Analysis & Health. (2022). Texas-Specific Dashboard of CDC Places Data. Retrieved from [https://sph.uth.edu/projects/jcogah]
Texas-Specific Dashboard of Social Vulnerability
How to use the Texas Specific SVI Dashboard
Note 1: This mapping dashboard should be viewed on a desktop or laptop computer with a large screen, not a tablet. It may take some time to load when it’s opened for the first time, but will run smoothly shortly thereafter as the cache memory of your browser adjusts. It works best using the Google Chrome browser.
Note 2: This dashboard displays data from the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) that was formulated to construct a vulnerability index similar to the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index. The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) uses 15 neighborhood-level census variables to create a vulnerability score for each census tract in the US. Visualizations on this dashboard are unique because they are relative to the state of Texas, unlike other platforms which show data in relation to the entire country. This dashboard is also unique because it displays data at the census block group level, which is a more granular spatial resolution than other platforms.
Note 3: To cite use of Texas-Specific Dashboard of Social Vulnerability, please use the following citation: UTHealth-MD Anderson Joint Center on Geospatial Analysis & Health. (2022). Texas-Specific Dashboard of Social Vulnerability. Retrieved from: [https://sph.uth.edu/projects/jcogah]