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Title:
Visualizing spatial relationships among health, environment, and demographic
statistics: Interface design issues.
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M., C. Polsky,
D. Haug, D. Brown, F. Boscoe, J. Beeddasy, L. Pickle, and M. Marrara.
Date:
1997
Abstract:
Mapping of georeferenced health statistics has, in the past, led
to insights concerning various health-environment-behavior interactions.
Insights have derived from the identification of clusters of deaths
on static maps (Mason et al., 1975; Pickle et al., 1987; Pickle
et al., 1990) followed by comparison of the cluster locations to
the mapped distribution of potential etiologic agents (Croner et
al., 1992). Spatial associations identified have prompted hypotheses
about the causal relations, some of which have been verified. Examples
include identification of "hot spots" of esophagal cancer in China
and oral cancer in the U.S. state of North Carolina (Winn et al.,
1981). Static paper maps, while somewhat successful in prompting
epidemiological hypotheses, impose constraints on exploration of
spatial characteristics of health-environment-behavior interactions.
Dynamic visualization methods offer the potential to dramatically
extend the role of maps in health analysis. This paper reports on
the design and implementation of a prototype dynamic interface to
georeferenced health, environmental, and demographic data, with
the prototype sponsored by and developed for the U.S. National Center
for health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(NCHS). Two specific objectives have been delineated for the initial
prototype: (1) to design alternative methods for displaying dynamic
maps of death rate and risk factor data in a user-friendly computer
system, and (2) to test these designs in an experiment where users
attempt to draw inferences about changing death rate patterns and
their relationship to risk factor patterns.
Publication:
Proceedings of the 18th International Cartographic Conference, June
21-27, 1997, Stockholm, Sweden, pp 880-887.
Keywords:
Full
Paper...
Title:
Evaluation of map color schemes for the NCHS mortality atlas
Authors:
Brewer, Cynthia and Alan M. MacEachren
Date:
1995
Publication:
Proceedings, International Symposium on Computer Mapping in Epidemiology
and Environmental Health, February 12-15.
Keywords:
Title:
Mapping mortality: Selecting hues and evaluating color schemes
Authors:
Brewer, Cynthia, A. M. MacEachren,
L. Pickle, and D. Herrmann
Date:
1997
Publication:
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87(3): pp 411-438.
Keywords:
Title:
Visualizing georeferenced data: representing reliability in health
statistics.
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan, Cynthia Brewer,
Linda Pickle
Date:
1997
Abstract:
The power of human vision to synthesize information and recognize
pattern is fundamental to the success of visualization as a scientific
method. This same power can mislead investigators who use visualization
to explore geo-referenced data - if data reliability is not addressed
directly in the visualization process. Here, we apply an integrated
cognitive-semiotic approach to devise and test three methods for
depicting reliability of georeferenced health data. The first method
makes use of adjacent maps, one for data and one for reliability.
This form of paired representation is compared to two methods in
which data and reliability are spatially coincident (on a single
map). A novel method for coincident visually separable depiction
of data and data reliability on mortality maps (using a color fill
to represent data and a texture overlay to represent reliability)
is found to be effective in allowing map users to recognize unreliable
data without interfering with their ability to notice clusters and
characterize patterns in mortality rates. A coincident visually
integral depiction (using color characteristics to represent both
data and reliability) is found to inhibit perception of clusters
that contain some enumeration units with unreliable data, but to
make it difficult for users to consider data and reliability independently.
Publication:
(In Press) Environment and Planning: A
Keywords:
Full
Paper...
Title:
Mapping Health Statistics: Representing Data Reliability
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M., Cynthia Brewer,
Linda Pickle
Date:
1995
Abstract:
Data reliability is a major concern
for both science and policy analysis. Methods of specifying the
reliability of sample data, the variance around measures of central
tendency, the confidence we should put in statistical summaries,
etc. are well developed. When data are geo referenced, however,
reliability estimates have not traditionally been mapped. For the
same reasons that we map spatial data rather than limiting ourselves
to tables or to numerical results of statistical analysis, we should
portray data reliability in map form. This paper reports on the
first stage of an effort to develop and assess reliability representation
methods in the context of the U. S. National Center for Health Statistics
Mortality Atlas.
Publication:
Proceedings of the 17th International Cartographic Conference, September
3-9, 1995, Barcelona, Spain, pp 311-319.
Keywords:
Full
Paper...
Title:
Visualizing the health of the Chesapeake Bay: An uncertain endeavor.
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M., D. Howard,
M. von Wyss, D. Askov, T. Taormino.
Date:
1993
Abstract:
This paper reports on a prototype
interactive exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) environment
designed to facilitate incorporation of uncertainty estimates. The
prototype is directed particularly to analysis of dissolved inorganic
nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay. Emphasis is placed on spatial, temporal,
and attribute uncertainty issues inherent in collection and processing
of space-time data (e.g., sampling, categorization, interpolation,
spatial filtering, etc.). Two important questions related to uncertainty
representation have been identified in previous research:
(a)
which graphic variables are appropriate for showing different kinds
of uncertainty
(b)
what kind of user interface is most effective. The development
platform for the ESDA project is IMSL/IDL, running under UNIX
on Sun Sparcstations.
IDL
provides a dynamic environment for addressing the above questions
and for extending the first to dynamic as well as static variables.
Publication:
GIS/LIS '93 Proceedings, Minneapolis, MN, pp 449 - 458.
Keywords:
Full
Paper...
Title:
Constructing and Evaluating an Interactive Interface for Visualizing
Reliability
Authors:
Howard, David and Alan M. MacEachren
Date:
1995
Publication:
Proceedings of the 17th International Cartographic Conference, September
3-9, 1995, Barcelona, Spain, pp 320-329.
Keywords:
Title:
Visualizing Uncertain Information
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M.
Date:
1992
Abstract:
When maps are used as visualization tools, exploration of potential
relationships takes precedence over presentation of facts. In these
early stages of scientific analysis or policy formulation, providing
a way for analysts to assess uncertainty in the data they are exploring
is critical to the perspectives they form and the approaches they
decide to pursue. As a basis from which to develop methods for visualizing
uncertain information, this paper addresses the difference between
data quality and uncertainty, the application of Bertin's graphic
variables to the representation of uncertainty, conceptual models
of spatial uncertainty as they relate to kinds of cartographic symbolization,
and categories of user interfaces suited to presenting data and
uncertainty about that data. Also touched on is the issue of how
we might evaluate our attempts to depict uncertain information on
maps.
Publication:
Cartographic Perspectives, vol. 13: pp 10-19.
Keywords:
Full
Paper...
Title:
Visualization quality and the representation of uncertainty
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M.
Date:
1991
Publication:
NCGIA Specialist Meeting: Initiative 7, Visualization of Data Quality:
Working Papers
Keywords:
Title:
Geographic Visualization: Designing Manipulable Maps for Exploring
Temporally Varying Georeferenced Statistics.
Authors:
MacEachren, Alan M., Boscoe,
Frank, Haug, Daniel, and :ickle, Linda (in press)
Date:
1998
Publication:
Proceedings, IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, Oct. 19-20,
1998, Research Triangle Park, NC
Keywords:
geographic
visualization, information interfaces, animation, user centered
design, prototyping, interaction styles, spatiotemporal data, exploratory
data analysis, cartography, maps, computer aplications, health statistics
Full
Paper (PDF Version)...
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