Healthography in the BSN Curriculum: Points, Polygons and Planning

Background: Healthography is a good fit with courses in Health Informatics and Public Health Nursing. Geographic information systems (GIS) are a powerful tool for integration and analysis of spatial data at the community level to represent health strengths and needs. With GIS skills in their toolboxes, future public health nurses will be well prepared for innovative community health planning. The purpose of this presentation is to describe GIS tools that allow students to create points and polygons on collaborative maps for community assessment and planning. 

Description: Prototype GIS mapping programs were developed for use in the Health Informatics and Public Health Nursing courses. Students entered their community assessment observations as points or polygons (closed shapes). Points were used to represent locations with age-friendly characteristics such as a park with sufficient outdoor seating. Polygons were used to represent students’ windshield survey observations of a community. A windshield survey is a first look at a community in which students use their senses to discover a community as they drive through it.

Lessons Learned: Students readily used the GIS technology to gain insights about communities. Public health nurses were interested in student findings and appreciated learning the basics of GIS.

Implications/recommendations: Students can transform observations of community strengths and needs into geo-spatial data in the form of points and polygons to contribute to innovative community assessment and planning.