Lessons Learnt From Exercise Celestial Navigation: The Application of a Geographic Information System to Inform Legionnaires’ Disease Control Activity

Abstract

Geographic information systems (GIS) have emerged in the past few decades as a technology capable of assisting in the control of infectious disease outbreaks. A Legionnaires' disease cluster investigation in May 2016 in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, demonstrated the importance of using GIS to identify at-risk water sources in real-time for field investigation to help control any immediate environmental health risk, as well as the need for more staff trained in the use of this technology. Sydney Local Health District Public Health Unit (PHU) subsequently ran an exercise (based on this investigation) with 11 staff members from 4 PHUs across Sydney to further test staff capability to use GIS across NSW. At least 80% of exercise participants reported that the scenario progression was realistic, assigned tasks were clear, and sufficient data were provided to complete tasks. The exercise highlighted the multitude of geocoding applications and need for inter-operability of systems, as well as the need for trained staff with specific expertise in spatial analysis to help assist in outbreak control activity across NSW. Evaluation data demonstrated the need for a common GIS, regular education and training, and guidelines to support the collaborative use of GIS for infectious disease epidemiology in NSW. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;page 1 of 3).

A cluster of Legionnaires' disease in Belgium linked to a cooling tower, August–September 2016: practical approach and challenges

“…Another limitation is regarding the use of the geographic information tool. The tool was, rather than during the ongoing investigation, only retrospectively used to its full extent, allowing post-hoc to gather more evidence to identify CT3 as the most likely source [37]. The tool, while easy in use, is limited in its flexibility to assess attack rates at different distances for different kinds of sources, e.g.…”

Practical application of systemizing expedition research results in the form of taxonomy

“…One way to reach such the aim of study is to take a comprehensive approach to using geographic information systems (GIS) [1,10,20] and an ontological journal. Recently, many methods have been developed to visualize scientific information, taking into account the geographical relevance of scientific data.…”

Structurization of educational expedition studies in the form of taxonomies

“…One of the helpful approaches is to provide structurization using the IMRAD approach, as noted before [27,28,33]. Also, one way to reach such an aim is to take a comprehensive approach to use geographic information systems (GIS) [5,14,22] and an ontological journal. After the structuration process and representation on GIS, the data is presented in an easy-to-handle form, easily read by standard GIS tools, and conveniently displayed to the end-user [31].…”

“…One way to do this is to take a comprehensive approach to using geographic information systems (GIS) [5,14,22] and an ontological journal. Recently, many Fig.…”