Integrating Mapping with Immunization Registries

Immunization registries offer the opportunity for

epidemiologists, immunization coordinators, assessment

specialists, and immunization coalitions to address all

aspects of communicable disease prevention. Registries

that are population-based become valuable resources

for the health professional. In an era of tight budgets,

increasing public health demands and over worked

staff, management level tools that can capitalize on the

information within an immunization registry are

necessary.

Tools such as statistical packages, report generators,

and database query builders can be used for “mining”

of information from registries. However, these tools do

not easily support combining of related information

resources. For example, they can be used to display

graphics, tables, charts, and projections of the data in

the immunization registry. They cannot easily be used

to link this information to reportable communicable

diseases, birth rates, or characteristics of the population

base within a geographic study area.

The tool that does allow this is a Geographic

Information System (GIS). A GIS allows a user to

combine sets of information such as patient

immunizations, birth rates, population demographics,

and geographic boundaries into visual displays that are

then integrated with underlying data sets. GIS however,

is not a universal tool that is easy to use. This paper

illustrates by example of how a GIS can be used to support proactive immunization efforts.