52 Attend 42nd Symposium | Senior scientist becomes life member of medical society | Young scientist receives award | Sauli attends measles detection workshop | IMR Madang staff attend AIDS talk | Staff get training on DVBS | University of Technology staff visit PNGIMR | This quater in pictures | Media personnel attends film workshop in Fiji | IMR Rugby Union team receive new jerseys | A trip of a life time | 2007 42nd Medical symposium in pictures |Successful GIS training workshop

Click here to download this newsletter in PDF format (240kB)

Successful gis training workshop

On the 19th-21st September 2007, 20 IMR staff were fortunate enough to participate in the Graphic Information System (GIS) Technology Workshop, which was held at IMR Goroka.

PNGIMR scientific officers and computer and statistics staff who attended the gis workshop in goroka.

The workshop was organized by the Centre for Global Health and Diseases, Case Western Reserve University and the PNGIMR.

The program was jointly developed with support from the USA National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Fogarty International Centre and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which are components of the National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services.

The organizers and trainers of the workshop were Dr Uriel Kitron from the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois and Dr Charles King from the Centre for Global Health and Diseases, Case Western University.

On day one of the workshop, the participants were taught the ‘Geographic Information systems (GIS), remote sensing and spatial analysis-introductory workshop’ and ‘ArcGIS software.’ They were also taught ‘Data collection and use/application of ArcGIS software.’

The objective of this was to introduce several methods of data collection and to develop an appreciation for the strengths and weaknesses of the data collected.

They were lectured on ‘Spatial data, mapping and visualization’ and they were introduced to mapping and visualization and creating maps.

This lesson was purposely to help the participants to create maps of several types including choropleth, bar and proportional symbol maps. Then to create maps to portray changes over time and to create presentation quality graphical outputs.

On day two they were lectured on ‘Remote sensing in Health Research,’ and ‘Error in GIS data analysis.’

Then on the computer they did overlay analysis exploration of environmental factors and disease. The objective of this exercise was to assess the differences in the relationships of disease and cases and selected environmental factors.

On the last day of the workshop the participants received certificates for attending the workshop and both trainers were presented bilums by the participants as a sign of appreciation.