GIS STUDIES RELATED TO ALCOHOL:
HOW GIS IS BEING USED TO SOLVE ALCOHOL-RELATED PROBLEMS
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GIS and Social Service Planning (Dickman et. al) In 1993, the Miami district of the Florida Department of Children and Families began to incorporate GIS in order to determine South Florida's social problems and provide information for planning solutions. Using ArcView and ArcInfo, the Department of Children and Families geocode client data. The geocoded data is grouped by parameters such as neighborhood boundaries, census block, and school board districts. This data is then analyzed and strategies are recommended to policy makers. One application that the Florida DCF developed, the Community Resources Mapping System (CRMS), permits simple production of maps: staff are led through a series of questions that lead to the creation of a GIS point map to show the locations of facilities such as police stations. Another application, the Community Indicators Mapping System (CIMS) leads to a thematic map showing thematic areas of social pathology such as alcohol abuse. |
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Photo courtesy of http://www.atf.treas.gov/ |
GIS and Alcohol Outlet Distribution GIS has been used to display "community alcohol outlets and alcohol-involved problems"(Millar and Gruenewald 1997). Since communities can restrict where new alcohol outlets are, it is important to understand the relationship between alcohol outlet locations/density and alcohol-related problems (Millar and Gruenewald 1997). To find out more about one study on the use of spatial models such as GIS to evaluate the influence of alcohol outlet distribution on alcohol-related problems, click here. To find out more about one study on the spatial relationship beween alcohol outlet distribution and alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, click here.
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Alcohol-Sensitive Information Planning System (ASIPS) The ASIPS/GIS Program allows police departments to capture data about alcohol and drug involvement in all police events, including "all part I crimes, all misdemeanors, and all police-assist calls for service" (Personal communication, Fried Wittman). The ASPIS program provides summary reports of alcohol and drug involvement to the community through "community tours," reports which combine tables, charts, and GIS maps (Personal communication, Fried Wittman). To find out more about ASIPS, click here. |
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GIS and Preventing Motor Vehicle-Related Injuries San Diego County implemented the "Safe Communities" program in 1997 in an attempt to decrease the number of motor vehicle-related injuries (Smith et. al 2000). ArcView was used to combine injury data from the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency Emergency Medical Services Division with information about motor vehicle crashes from the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System, which includes exact location information (Smith et. al 2000). To find out more about the Safe Communities Program, click here. |
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State Police GIS By using GIS to map traffic information, the Illinois State Police Department was able to reduce tthe number of traffic fatalities by 42% in its first year in operation. To find out more about the use of GIS to map traffic information in Illinois, click here. |
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GIS to Forecast Misuse GIS systems have been developed to help identify spatial patterns of behavior and to forecast possible drug and alcohol misues (Field et. al 2001). A Drug Incidence and Prevalence Estimation Program (DIPEP) can predict the spread of drug/alcohol misuse by using an epidemiological model similar to that of infections diseases (Field et. al 2001). An Avenue script creates an ArcView application that allows the user to input attribute information about location and other parameters (Field et. al 2001). The data is then mapped as a shapefile with ArcView, and diffusion outcome is calculated with DIPEP (Field et. al 2001). DIPEP produces a summary table and histogram within ArcView (Field et. al 2001). Multiple GIS maps can be combined as an animation to show/ predict the spread of alcohol and drug abuse (Field et. al 2001). |
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Ongoing GIS Studies on Alcohol Research scientist William Wieczorek has been designing a GIS for alcohol research that will be used to analyze alcohol-related variables and to create maps of information(Center for CMEA). To find out more about Wieczorek's work, click here.
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