Workshop

Pacific islanders Dive Deep into Community Health Maps Workflow

The First Vector Borne Disease Surveillance Workshop

0607191556-e1560536068216.jpgOn June 8 & 9, 2019, twelve pacific island public health professionals met in Honolulu, HI to participate in a Community Health Maps training specifically designed to demonstrate how to collect and work with geographic data related to vector borne diseases, i.e. those that are transmitted to humans via other animals such as mosquitoes. Attendees represented: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau.This was the first of two, two-day, workshops aimed specifically at tackling the spread of diseases like Dengue fever, West Nile and Zika viruses. It was a team effort. The training was organized by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). Participants attendance was funded by CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health. Travel for the trainers was funded by the National Library of Medicine, (funding for the workshop is provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International). This particular CHM workshop was taught in conjunction with ASTHO’s Insular Area Climate and Health Summit.After an introduction to the Community Health Maps project - it's origins, workflow and examples of past projects - participants learned to create a data collection form and use their smartphones to map features (trees, signs, benches etc...) around the IMG_20190610_214340_314_1_previewconference site using FulcrumParticipants saw how this particular part of the workflow could be applied in their home regions to digitally locate areas of standing water and/ or sand pits that are some examples of breeding habitat for mosquitoes. Others anticipated mapping salt water resistant taro, households where infections have occurred and other geographic factors that contribute to the spread of vector borne diseases.For the remainder of the first day the group took the data they created earlier and imported into QGIS, a sophisticated geographic visualization desktop software. In this section they became familiar with QGIS and how to symbolize layers and make a print map.In addition to the data collected on site, we worked with mosquito data acquired courtesy of Dr. Chris Barker  covering Madera County, CA. The data included mosquito trap results over five years, virus testing, mosquito biting complaints, storm drains, parcel boundaries, roads and a hypothetical case of Dengue fever.IMG_1909_1_previewThe second day focused on generating vector borne disease surveillance products. Kurt Menke developed a curriculum to demonstrate how a GIS can create maps and statistical charts that transform simple text and numbers in a database into intuitive graphics that communicate information quickly and accurately. The previous blog post has more detail about the specific vector borne disease surveillance products participants learn to create.20190607_114226(0)_1_previewThe attendees had a wide range of GIS skills from introductory to advanced capabilities. We experienced many of the common technical difficulties when working in a hotel conference room, older and newer computers and variations with different operating systems (Windows and Macs) as well. Despite all the differences, all of the participants: A) collected data with their smartphones, B) exported their data to a desktop GIS, C) used prepared data to create geographically accurate statistics, D) generated heatmaps of mosquito populations, E) calculated the minimum infection rate per year for West Nile and St. Louis Encephalitis viruses, F) identified potential sources using buffer operations with distances specific species are know to be able to travel, G) identified parcels at risk due to their proximity to a fictional outbreak of Dengue Fever and H) generated trend graphs of mosquito populations through time via the QGIS Data Plotly plugin. All participants received official QGIS certificates.The skills required to complete these tasks are not always simple and straight forward. The participants of this workshop expressed great enthusiasm and persistence in figuring it all out... making mistakes and trying again. Many expressed a need for more training and a desire to have more specialized trainings on site specifically related to projects they are already working on.The second workshop in the series will be taught next week in Providence, RI at the GIS Surveillance Workshop. This will be attended by State based health officials.This vector borne disease surveillance version of the Community Health Maps workflow showcases the analysis and data visualization capabilities of QGIS, as well as, the data collection capabilities of Fulcrum. It represents perhaps the greatest potential for applied use of Community Health Maps to date.These workshop materials will part of the suite of https://communityhealthmaps.nlm.nih.gov/resources/ available through the Community Health Maps program in the near future.If you are interested in having this taught for you or your colleagues contact Kurt Menke (kurt@birdseyeviewgis.com)

Vector Borne Disease Surveillance with QGIS - A Series of Two Day Workshops

This spring, with funding provided by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), Kurt Menke developed a two day workshop that combines elements of the standard Community Health Maps workflow with vector borne disease surveillance analyses.The workshop begins with an introduction to Community Health Maps, and learning how to use Fulcrum to develop a data collection form and collect community GIS data with a smartphone. Participants will then be introduced to QGIS. They will learn how to add the field data just collected, and symbolize it. They will then download some open data and create a map.The second day focuses on a suite of mosquito trap data acquired from Madera County, CA, by Dr. Chris Barker at UC Davis. There are 5 years of mosquito trap data and mosquito virus testing data. There are also anonymized data for mosquito biting complaints, mosquito management zones, storm drain locations, parcels and roads.Collectively this provides a rich yet manageable dataset. With it participants will learn to use to create information such as:mosquitosPerYearChart.pngculexquinqheatmap2019-05-23_1731322019-05-23_173733This workshop represents applied real-world workflows. These are many of the standard products needed by public health officials and typically produced by researchers. Having this sort of analysis and data visualization available via an open source package means anyone willing to take a few days to learn can produce them! This is especially true as the needed input data can be collected via Fulcrum if they don't already exist.This workshop will be taught twice in June. Both workshops will be part of the Community Health Maps project and are partly funded by the National Library of Medicine (funding for the workshop is provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International). The first iteration will be taught in conjunction with the Insular Area Climate and Health Summit in Honolulu, HI. This will be attended by public health officials from many of the Pacific Territories.The second workshop will be taught in Providence, RI at the GIS Surveillance Workshop. This will be attended by State based health officials.This material really showcases the analysis and data visualization capabilities of QGIS.  It represents perhaps the greatest potential for applied use of Community Health Maps to date. This workshop will part of the suite of Resources available through the Community Health Maps program in the near future.If you are interested in having this taught for you or your colleagues contact Kurt Menke (kurt@birdseyeviewgis.com). 

Community Health Maps at Rising Voices 7

Last week Community Health Maps traveled to Boulder, Colorado to teach a pre-conference workshop at Rising Voices 7. The theme was Converging Voices: Building relationships and practices for intercultural science. The conference was hosted by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The workshop was well attended with about two dozen participants representing numerous AI/AN tribes and other organizations. These workshop was part of the Community Health Maps project and was funded by the National Library of Medicine (funding for the workshop was provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International).The goal of Rising Voices is to "advance science through collaborations". Participants learn how indigenous and western scientific knowledge systems can compliment one another and advance our understanding of important issues in our communities. The focus is on climate.2019-05-20_164427At three hours the workshop was slightly shorter than normal. This allowed us to focus on field data collection with Fulcrum and web mapping with Carto. With a few minutes to spare Kurt Menke shared QGIS. Since he didn't have time to really demonstrate the use of QGIS he focused on the open source aspect. As an open source project, QGIS is both GIS software and a community. As such it aligns with the ethics many communities try to foster at Rising Voices.2019-05-22_080251 

Community Health Maps in Michigan: Four Workshops in Four Days in Four Cities!

This past week Kurt Menke traveled to Michigan and taught four Community Health Maps workshops for the University of Michigan. These were organized by the University of Michigan Libraries and were done in four days on four different campuses: Ann Arbor, Flint, Detroit Center and Dearborn. These workshops were part of the Community Health Maps project and were funded by the National Library of Medicine (funding for the workshops was provided under a sub-award from the National Library of Medicine to ICF International).BlogDue to great outreach by the University of Michigan team of - Tyler Nix, Marisa Conte, Alexa Rivera, Justin Schell, Sara McDonnell, Troy Rosencrants, Kui-Bin Im and Claudia Walters - the workshops had great attendance and ran like clockwork.The first was held at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor at the Hatcher Graduate Library.  Twenty eight people attended. The audience was mainly a mix of faculty and representatives of local public health/community organizations with a few students. The final hour was reserved for group discussion and Justin Schell did a fantastic job moderating. Ideas for mapping park safety and identifying underserved populations were discussed as projects where mapping could help.IMG_0204The second was held the following day at the UM Flint. We started in the University Center Happenings Room and moved to Thompson Library for the afternoon QGIS session. Forty five people came out for this second training, quite a bit more than we expected. This included some walk-ins and late registrants. In addition to faculty and students there were quite a few representatives from local county health departments and non-profits.20190403_134426The third was held at the UM Detroit Center on April 4th. Thirty people registered for this workshop. This was probably the most diverse group including some UM faculty, plus Wayne State faculty, county public health staff (including some as far away as Saginaw County) and non-profit public health workers.20190404_142046The fourth was held at UM Dearborn on April 5th. This was the smallest of the four with 20 registrants. However, this allowed us to get a little farther into the capabilities of QGIS.20190405_103209One of the most helpful components was a web page Marisa Conte set up for the workshops. It initially had all the important details for each workshop, including driving directions, links to the slides and workshop data. This alone set a new standard for workshop outreach and organization. During the discussion on the first day she began adding url's for sites containing useful data and other resources identified during the afternoon discussion. During the week this  evolved into what is now a fantastic resource for everyone who attended. This will be helpful to anyone implementing CHM related projects or those who weren't able to attend.For the week  123 people were trained in Community Health Maps! This is a record that may never be broken. However what came out of the week more than the numbers, is the incredible potential for projects that can make a real difference in these communities. I'm looking forward to working more with everyone I met. Thanks again to UM Michigan for organizing such a successful series of workshops.

A Preview of Coming Attractions

2019 is off to a fast start with the Community Health Maps program!The QGIS portion of the CHM labs found on the Resources page are being updated. Look for these in the next several weeks. These were last updated in 2017. In one month a new long-term release of QGIS will be released: QGIS 3.6. This will be the first long-term release of the 3.x line. If you have not yet switched over to QGIS 3.x, March will be the time to do so.  At this time 2.x line will be officially retired. You can revisit last years blog about what's new in QGIS 3 to see the sort of features now available. I will be posting an post next month about what you need to know about QGIS 3.6, as well as an announcement when the new training materials have been completed.There are a series of QGIS workshops scheduled for the spring:April 2 - University of Michigan Ann ArborApril 3 - University of Michigan FlintApril 4 - University of Michigan Detroit CenterApril 5 - University of Michigan DearbornMay 14 - Rising Voices 7 - Converging Voices: Building relationships and practices for intercultural science. - Boulder ColoradoJune 3-7 - ASTHO Climate and Health SummitJune 17-21 - ASTHO CHM and Vector Borne Disease WorkshopHappy Mapping! I hope to see you in the new year!   

UMD Students Learn How to Map Health Issues

By Angela Kim & Colette HochsteinOn October 4, 2018, National Library of Medicine® (NLM) Research Assistant Julian Argoti and University of Maryland (UMD), School of Public Health intern Angela Kim spoke to the “Professional Preparation in Community Health” class at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health, College Park. The 75-minute class was attended by approximately 45 undergraduate students in the UMD Behavioral and Community Health (BCH) program. The presenters introduced NLM’s Community Health Maps (CHM) blog and facilitated a hands-on activity.UMD1The presentation covered a basic introduction to the tools and workflow in CHM. The students were asked to use Fulcrum, a low-cost tool, to build a custom data collection form for the first step of the CHM workflow – data collection. They discovered first-hand how intuitive the tool is. After creating their own custom data collection form on the topic of their choice, the students left the classroom to collect data points around the School of Public Health building.UMD3On their return, the students explored maps of their data points on Fulcrum. Many noted that the process of collecting data points was easy and fun. UMD Professor James Butler mentioned that although drinking a good amount of water is emphasized at the School of Public Health, he had not previously noticed that there is no water fountain near the faculty lounge. His comment underscored that issues are often not observed until actively examined, as during the mapping process.UMD2The class ended with Professor Butler concluding the class by reiterating how CHM can serve as a useful tool for visualizing many of the different health issues discussed in class.The students were alerted to the free new online Community Health Maps online tutorial, a self-paced course from the NLM designed to help users gain the skills needed to use Community Health Maps.

A Pair of Community Health Maps Workshops at the ASTHO Climate and Health Summit

During the last week of May the Community Health Maps team (Janice Kelly, John Scott and Kurt Menke) traveled to Honolulu to participate in the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) Insular Area Climate and Health Summit. There were representatives from:

  • American Samoa
  • Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
  • Federated States of Micronesia
  • Guam
  • Palau
  • Puerto Rico
  • Marshall Islands
  • U.S. Virgin Islands
  • Hawaii Department of Health
  • Pacific Island Health Officers Association (PIHOA)
  • ASTHO
  • CDC
  • NOAA
7516756736_IMG_4910The first afternoon was focused on the impacts of climate change, preparedness and building resilience. There were great presentations on climate change (Capt. Barry Choy - NOAA), an overview of the tools and programs available from the CDC (Paul Schramm), and issues with vector-borne diseases and mosquitoes (Janet McAllister).  The ASTHO grantees then gave some some sobering presentations on current issues people are dealing with in the Mariana Islands, Micronesia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.img-7852.jpgThe second day focused more on tools and resources. There were more detailed talks given by the CDC on Technical Assistance for Vector Control and Tools and Resources for Climate and Water Safety. That afternoon we taught a 3.5 hour Community Health Maps Train-the-Trainers workshop to a group of health officials from each territory.  We went through the entire CHM workflow: A) how to design a data collection form, B) how to collect data, C) how to make a map in Carto and D) how to bring the data into QGIS.
The last morning we taught a second Community Health Maps workshop open to everyone. We had about 30 attendees and again went through the entire CHM workflow.img-7880.jpgMost of the trainees had little to no GIS training yet instantly knew how mapping could apply to their work and lives. They want to map everything related to hurricane relief, salt water resistant taro farms, infrastructure related to mosquito outbreaks etc. A benefit of having the community do this is that they can be in charge of their own data and it helps build community relationships.Over the three days I heard a lot of side discussions about the usefulness of the free/low cost/open source CHM approach. The cost of proprietary solutions is often a significant barrier to entry into the world of community data collection and mapping. We were gratified to hear some very positive feedback on the workshops and CHM overall during the closing session. There seems to be a lot of potential in CHM helping both U.S. Territories and ASTHO deal with the immediate and long-term health issues related to climate.

Exploring Accessibility and Sustainability at the University of Maryland School of Public Health

By: Jessica Throwe, Sofia Marmolejos, and Colette HochsteinThe National Library of Medicine (NLM) periodically hosts classes to introduce aspiringpublic health professionals to the benefits of using low-cost GIS mapping tools incommunity health research. Recently, NLM interns Jessica Throwe and SofiaMarmolejos, along with NLM Research Assistant Julian Argoti, presented CommunityHealth Maps (CHM) to University of Maryland School of Public Health undergraduateand graduate students.UMDEventThe first presentation was held during a seventy-five minute “Principles of CommunityHealth” class of twenty-five undergraduates. A second was provided to a close-knitclass of ten graduate students studying community health and health literacy.After an introduction to Community Health Maps and to the history and ideology ofGIS/mapping in health research, students used Fulcrum, a mobile data-collectionutility, to create customized forms for collecting data on their mobile phones. Theywere then given thirty minutes to explore the classroom building and collect data on thehealth topic of their choice. The data collected included the geographic location,functionality, and visual appearance of the points of interest.The larger undergraduate class chose a wide variety of subjects, ranging from nearbybus stops and curb ramps to building water fountains and bathroom stall colors. Thesmaller graduate class focused on the school building’s resources, including handsanitizer dispensers, bike racks, compost bins, wheel chair accessibility, and foodofferings. After the data collection and review process, problems with the building’sresources became more apparent, which sparked ideas regarding potentialimprovements.One group noticed that although the school has a new sustainability initiative, of thetwenty locations in the building with trash and recycling bins, only three included acompost bin. Another group found that the hand sanitizer dispensers functionedeverywhere except right outside the gym, a site where this product is in high demand. Athird group discovered the school has a limited number of locations to purchase snacks,and that each of these contains just one vending machine which does not offer healthyfood options.This introduction and exposure to Community Health Maps allowed University ofMaryland undergraduate students to explore the concept of mapping and to makeconnections with community health research. UMD graduate students actively appliedthe CHM processes to discovering geospatial inconsistencies in their built environmentand to brainstorming areas for potential improvements within the building.NLM looks forward to learning how students of varied educational levels will applyCommunity Health Maps to future educational and professional experiences.

Mapping South Florida's King Tides

By John C. Scott - Center for Public Service Communications

Community Health Maps (CHM) recently joined forces with community based organizations and residents in North Miami, and Florida International University faculty to map health risks associated with the 2017 King Tides, September 19th and 20th and again on October 7th , the time of the highest of the inundations.

Several communities in Miami experienced predictable tidal flooding during the highest tides of the year. The Shorecrest community is among them. Sampling of the flood waters during previous King Tides has established that they contain elevated concentrations of bacteria. The aim of this project was to prepare residents of the community to record and map data that will help them plan their daily activities to protect their health, and give them tools to communicate with the city and county about their environmental health risks.

King Tides flood the streets of the Shorecrest neighborhood while community members collect data.

King Tides flood the streets of the Shorecrest neighborhood while community members collect data.

Complicating the task of collecting data in the community was Hurricane Irma which hit South Florida only a week before the September measurements, causing dislocation of residents, power outages and other disruptions that resulted in the decision not to tax neighborhood residents by expecting them to learn the CHM workflow and map hazards in the community.

For the CHM/King Tides mapping project, community members were trained on the CHM workflow before collecting and mapping environmental health data during the King Tides in the Shorecrest community of Miami. A physical tool box containing needed technology, sampling equipment, key contact information, and protocols for community engagement in data collection during King Tides was created by Jan Booher of Unitarian Universalist Justice Florida and Drs. Tiffany Troxler and Susan Jacobson of Florida International University Wetland Ecosystems Research Lab and School of Communications, respectively. Based on the initial data collection and mapping effort with the Fall 2017 tides, a community report will be generated in collaboration with community leaders to be shared with residents and decision-makers in the community and with appropriate members of City of Miami and Miami-Dade County staffs.

For those of you who are new to Community Health Maps, the initiative was founded on the premise that community-based organizations, environmental health advocacy groups, public health agencies are in a better position to serve their constituents when they can collect and maintain their own data, rather than relying solely on national, state or city agencies, or majority-institution partners to provide data to them.

The CHM approach involves using relatively low cost tablets and smartphone platforms, combined with a selection of low/no-cost applications that run on them, to collect data in order to better understand health status or health risks to the community and support decision-making leading to appropriate allocation of resources to improve health conditions and prevent or mitigate risk. Using the CHM workflow, those data can then be analyzed, shared and presented using low cost/open source software. These tools allow expert and novice users, with little budget resource, to implement mapping workflows.

A common way in which prospective users have learned the CHM workflow is through our CHM Training Workshops. The CHM workshop presents an opportunity to learn and discuss new ideas and methodologies, which will empower community organizations, teachers, and students serving vulnerable or underserved populations with low cost, intuitive mapping technology. During the workshops, we also share experiences where the CHM workflow has helped MPH programs and other academic health centers and community-focused organizations visualize their data and better understand and portray their significance to the community.

The Florida King Tides was a more ambitious project than usual for CHM. While most of the work of the CHM team consists of training and building capacity of communities to map and better-understand their health risk to environmental factors, this was our first opportunity to work in the field with users of the workflow. Together with the core CHM team of NLM, Center for Public Service Communications and Bird’s Eye View, CHM teamed with Unitarian Universalist Justice Florida (UUJF) and it’s The Rising Together project, which works residents in vulnerable communities in coastal Florida about how to prepare for and react to the public health effects of climate change. Through its association with UUJF, the Community Health Maps team also trained and worked with Quaker Earthcare Witness, New Florida Majority, and Florida International University’s Wetland Ecosystems Research Lab and School of Communication and Journalism.

Map made in QGIS of the September King tide data collection showing flood water salinity levels.

Map made in QGIS of the September King tide data collection showing flood water salinity levels.

It is our vision that data collected by neighborhood residents about conditions affecting environmental health can be visualized via CHM, together with databases available from city, county, state and federal governments to, as one example, identify potential predictable impact of future king tides so that public transportation and school walking routes can be modified to avoid health risks.

Map showing water depth in comparison to elevation above sea level

Map showing water depth in comparison to elevation above sea level

While collecting data for risk maps a Miami Herald reporter stopped by the Shorecrest neighborhood where we were working. Here's his story about our initiative.

Q & A with Kurt Menke, CHM Moderator

By Jenny RewolinskiGala13_2cropThe following is a question and answer interview with the moderator of the with Community Health Maps (CHM) blog, Kurt Menke, GISP (Certified geographic information systems (GIS) professional). Kurt has worked with CHM since its inception in 2014 and is a valuable resource for users of CHM.What is your background? Kurt: I started out as an archaeologist. I spent 8 years in the desert southwest working on Anasazi pueblo archaeology. I went on to receive a Masters in Geography from the University of New Mexico in 2000. While in graduate school I began working at the UNM’s Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC). That's where I really learned about GIS. I worked there for 11 years as a GIS Analyst/Programmer.When did you being using open source GIS?It was at EDAC, about 15 years ago, when I was first exposed to open source mapping software. We began using Mapserver for web mapping applications, because it was faster and more stable than the Esri alternative. I realized there was a whole ecosystem of open source tools out there.How did you first come to work with NLM?Kurt: John Scott, President of the Center for Public Service Communications and I have collaborated on health related projects with NLM for over 10 years. We first met while I was working at EDAC on a project with the National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA). I had developed an app named the Interactive Health Atlas. That project eventually ended and I left the university to create my business Bird’s Eye View. John thought we should take the best parts of the NICOA project to the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It evolved into what we called the Health Equity Atlas. This was custom software we developed, which was really time consuming. It worked great, but wasn’t widely adopted. We learned a valuable lesson, for something like this to be successful, it needs to be something organizations are asking for. No matter how useful it may be, if people don't have time for it, it will just sit on the shelf.How did CHM begin?Kurt: In 2012, John asked me to look at existing smart phone apps. His idea was, rather than developing a completely new application, we could use existing low cost software. Plus we would work with organizations who had mapping as a defined need. I ended up completing a thorough survey of smartphone data collection tools and some of them were perfect. I identified what I thought were the two or three best. We realized we could stitch together a series of low cost intuitive tools that collectively address everyone’s mapping needs.We settled on Fulcrum, QGIS, and Carto as our core CHM workflow tools. We started with pilot projects at the University of Hawaii and the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle. Showing people how to use these tools via a train-the-trainer approach ended up working really well.You are a QGIS expert. When did you first begin using QGIS?Kurt: QGIS was started in 2002 and I began playing with it in 2005. I just discovered it fromDiscoverQGISCover a listserv. At first it was very limited, being little more than a data viewer. But I was really curious to see how it might evolve, so I started following it. It really started becoming a useful alternative in 2010. I gradually migrated to it with my business. I also started teaching GIS classes with it. I used to keep a list of things you could do with ArcGIS that you couldn't in QGIS. Now it's come so far that I have a list of things you can do in QGIS that you can't in ArcGIS!How has CHM evolved?Kurt:  Once we realized we had something that would be useful to people, we began looking for partner organizations. These are organizations who work with data and can benefit from mapping, but lack the resources to get started. We conduct workshops and webinars to get people started down the mapping path.Along the way I thought a blog would be a really helpful tool to keep people up to date with new technology. These tools are constantly improving and I thought this would be a way to share these enhancements with everyone. Later we realized we needed additional resources for people to continue to build their skills after the initial workshops. I developed a series of six labs covering the mapping tools in more detail. These labs were inspired from a separate project I worked on called the GeoAcademy. This is a complete college curriculum for teaching GIS using open source tools. It even won an award!geoacademy_logo_col_5Our primary goal for CHM has always been to provide tools that are helpful to users. After years of trying to build something from scratch, we are now finally gaining some traction with CHM. It feels like a snowball, rolling downhill and gaining speed. I believe it is both because the tools are powerful and intuitive, plus we are getting better at identifying potential users.Would you recount one experience with CHM that felt especially influential for CHM’s progress so far? Kurt: Yes the first thing that comes to mind is the work with the Medical University ofIMG_5459South Carolina (MUSC). In early 2015 I taught a CHM workshop to 8 people. The training went well. No one in attendance had ever worked with any type of mapping software before. Yet I was able to show them how to make a data collection form, collect points, and map the data in Carto. The next day I went to a high school on John’s Island and taught several students over their lunch break how to collect data. They picked up on it immediately and spent the semester mapping food and water locations on the island.Months later, the MUSC participants were so excited by the possibilities that they asked me to come back. This second training had 25 people. Later that year we came back for a third workshop, and 80 people from across MUSC attended! That I could show such a large group, how to work with these tools in a half day was a real proof of concept!RS1882__DSC6496-lprSeveral projects were inspired these MUSC workshops. Of particular note is Dr. Bryan Heckman’s smoking cessation research project. I must point out that Dr. Deb Williamson and Dana Burshell worked to organize and plan the MUSC trainings and deserve most of the credit for the turnout.Our successful trainings with MUSC have served as a model for teaching bigger groups such as those at the CHM Symposium at the National Library of Medicine in June, 2016 and recent trainings in Seattle.img_2178The most gratifying aspect of these workshops was seeing people shed their technological insecurities. It’s common for people to show up and admit they’re scared of the technology. To then see in a few short hours, they are getting it all to work, and actually getting excited about the possibilities, is a beautiful thing. What are your plans for the future of CHM? Kurt: The work that people are doing right now with CHM barely scratches the surface in terms of the potential. I would like to get more community members involved. I envision a scenario where there is an organization can really engage with citizens to map the community. The data could be managed by a central data manager in the organization. It would be such a great way to involve the community in a project directly related to their healthcare.I’d also like to see someone get past the initial data gathering and map making phase. QGIS has a lot of spatial analysis capabilities. I’d like to see someone push beyond the CHM labs and do some interesting analyses in QGIS or use some of the cool data visualization techniques in Carto.What advice you would give to new CHM users?Kurt: Don’t be afraid to dive in and use the tools. Be adventurous and creative with your projects. Don’t be afraid to mess up. That’s how you learn. There is no limit to the kinds of things you can accomplish with mapping and spatial analysis tools. If you can imagine it, it can be done.