Abstract

Perl Girlz: Using GIS for a Health Ecological Model
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Aaron Burgess, Shawn Hoch, Sarah Wiehe

Background

A knowledge gap exists in the spatial relationships between social disorder, where an adolescent spends her time and health risk behavior. The objective was to assess whether a correlation exists between social disorder and self-reported adolescent health-risk behavior.

Methods/GIS

Girls (N=48), aged 14 to 16, were selected from a specific geographic area and monitored for 1 week using a GPS-enabled cell phone recording waypoints every 5 minutes. Adolescents self-reported substance use and sexual intercourse in the last 30 days. Using ArcGIS 10 (ArcInfo license), multiple analyses were performed using GPS points as well as point-level crime, STI rates, parcel and built environment data. Geoprocessing tools, Network Analyst and more were collected and automated using Modelbuilder for analysis.

Results

The context where an adolescent spend time relates to her health-related behavior. These data may guide policy relating to crime control, ecological context and spatio-temporal aspects of adolescent health.