Course description: This course will familiarize students with the basic knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS) and their application to social work practice and research. The course is organized around three primary areas: 1) conceptual; 2) technical; and 3) data management. A conceptual overview of GIS is presented to provide students with foundational knowledge about the theory, purpose, function, and applicability of GIS in practice and research settings. Students will develop critical thinking skills necessary to devise research questions appropriate for a GIS, to develop a GIS, interpret the findings, and to evaluate the spatial relationships between variables.
If you created a poster before Spring 2015 and would like to make it openly available (Unrestricted) online, please submit the linked Consent Form to digital@wustl.edu.
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Solid Fuel Use in the Philippines: An Exploratory Sociospatial Analysis
Lisa Reyes Mason
12-12-2014Over two billion people worldwide use solid fuels (e.g., charcoal, wood, crop waste) for cooking, lighting, and other basic needs. When used with traditional cooking methods, solid fuels contribute to indoor air pollution and threaten maternal and child health (Rehfuess, Mehta, & Prüss-Üstün, 2006; UNDP, 2008). In the Philippines, 65% of households report solid fuels as their main source of cooking energy (NSO & ICF Macro, 2009). This study uses spatial analysis and multilevel modeling to explore two questions: are there spatial differences in household solid fuel use (HSFU) in the Philippines? What social, economic, and geographic characteristics are associated with such use?
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Birth-WIC
Amanda Maust
12-12-2014This study examines WIC eligibility, which extends beyond mothers to children up to five years of age with nutritional risk, and participation. The number of children living in grandparent-headed households increased 30% between1990 and 2005, half are under age six, and their households have higher poverty rates than other family type households (Hayslip & Kaminski, 2005). Research conducted on TANF and food stamps has shown that although grandmother-only no parent families are most likely to be poor, they are less likely to receive benefits (Brandon, 2005). If the same pattern is true of WIC participation, young children with nutrition risk who are living with grandparents may be underutilizing the program. Locating these families geographically could help target outreach efforts.
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Nurses For Newborns Foundation: Review of a Decade of Service
Amanda Maust and Kristen Siebels
12-12-2014Nurses for Newborns Foundation’s (NFN) mission is to provide a safety net for families most-at-risk by helping prevent infant mortality, child abuse and neglect through home-based programs that provide education, healthcare and positive parenting skills. How has NFN service area changed over the past 10 years in Missouri and Tennessee? This poject asks if there a relationship between NFN service areas in Missouri and Tennessee and the social indicators of health, including poverty level and educational attainment per ZIP code.
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The Market Value Analysis in St. Louis: Relating Market Potential and Community Development Organizations
Noel McKay
12-9-2014With scarce resources available, St. Louis must become more strategic in aligning investment opportunities to leverage the maximum benefit for neighborhoods. This project asks where in St. Louis can place-based investments have the highest potential for impact, the broadest reach, and greatest opportunity to leverage private investment?
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Identifying Potential Sites for Business Development in Vine City, Atlanta, Georgia
Abigail McNamara
12-9-2014As construction of a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons progresses, a parallel effort is underway to make meaningful, lasting improvements to the neighboring community of Vine City, one of Atlanta’s oldest and most impoverished neighborhoods. Over the past 30 years, Vine City has experienced significant decline in population, property investment and general economic stability. According to Census data, less than 40 percent of Vine City residents are employed and more than 50 percent of its families live below the poverty. In 2014, Equifax and the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation joined the Atlanta Committee for Progress and community leaders and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive plan for neighborhood revitalization, beginning with strategies for business development to address the neighborhood’s declining economic conditions. A thorough assessment of the current business landscape is critical to inform strategies moving forward. This research study seeks to, using GIS, identify existing minority- or women-owned small businesses within Vine City requiring additional resources and support tobetter serve the neighborhood’s residents.
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Access to Nutritional Foods in St. Louis Public Schools
Shikha Mittal
12-9-2014While research indicates that many critical factors contribute to the complexity behind explaining the achievement gap, current research in the United States overlooks the importance of addressing food insecurity as an important contributing factor for academic success known as “hidden hunger”There is a lack of research about how to most effectively address the needs of youth that do not receive nutritional foods in order to bbe healthy and productive members of their schools and communities International research has indicated that nutrition plays a key role in positive cognitive development including improved attention and episodic memory, among other factors, that lead to better academic performance Though St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) participate in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, students are still not receiving food with adequate nutritional value in some regions Food Deserts: Low-income census tract with limited access to food, determined by the distance from a certain location (i.e., schools) to a grocery store, supercenter or supermarket (USDA, 2010). This project asks how does satisfactory nutritional food access compare in elementary and secondary public schools in St. Louis city and St. Louis County?
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Community Referral Program in St. Louis City, MO
Janyl Moldalieva and Jovidsho Juraev
12-12-2014The St. Louis Integrated Health Network (IHN) was established in 2003 to improve accessibility, quality, and affordability of healthcare for the uninsured and underinsured through increased integration and coordination of safety net heath care providers. In alliance with primary and specialty medical care providers in St. Louis, IHN serves over 172,000 patients through 480,000 primary care encounters and 125,000 specialty care encounters. Current IHN initiatives include: Network Master Patient Index (NMPI), Community Referral Coordinator Program (CRC), and Breast Cancer Referral Program. CRC utilizes Referral Coordinators to connect non-emergent emergency department patients with primary care providers in 23 health centers integrated into the network (IHN, 2010).
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Using Place to Identify St. Louis County Long-Term Care Facilities at Risk of Lacking Resources during Severe Winter Weather
Elyse M. Murrell
12-9-2014State-licensed long-term care (LTC) facilities are mandated to have disaster and emergency plans in place for their residents. These plans should include written policies and procedures as well as training and ongoing evaluation. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf coast. The deaths of more than 100 nursing home residents, particularly the 35 at St. Rita’s, shocked the nation. Unfortunately, nursing facilities across the country are still ill-prepared to provide adequate care during disasters even though 71% generally plan to shelter in place. In Missouri, approximately 35% of licensed LTC facilities do not have a backup generator to use in the event of a power loss. If these agencies are not located near a road that is regularly maintained during severe winter weather, they may be isolated from accessing additional resources, including fuel and generators. This is an exploratory analysis of which facilities in St. Louis County may experience greater risk of lacking resources during severe winter weather based on proximity to regularly maintained roads.
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Effectiveness of State Regulation Hospital Report Cards on Mortality & Readmission Rates
Denise Nguyen
5-4-2014This project evaluates the association in mortality and readmission rates among states that require hospitals report cards versus states that do not require hospital report cards.
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Geospatial comparison of incidence of oral and pharyngeal cancers and tobacco and alcohol use in the United States
Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters and Kamal Ganjalikhani
12-12-2014Oral and pharyngeal cancers (OPCs) together, are the 6th most common cancers worldwide Accounts for 3% of all cancers in the United States 13th most common cancers in the United States 300,000 cases reported between 1999 and 2008 Tobacco and alcohol act independently and synergistically as major risk factors. This project asks if there a similarity in distribution of OPC and adult smoking levels across states; is there a similarity in distribution of OPC and alcohol consumption across the states; is there a high density of OPC incidences in areas with high levels of both alcohol consumption and smoking.
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Assessing The Recreovia Program Using Geographic Information System
Carolina Paez, Andrew Nylander, and Aaron Hipp
12-12-2014The Recreovia program started in 1994 in Bogota, Colombia as a complementary strategy to promote active living by providing free physical activity classes in community settings (i.e., parks, community/shopping centers, streets) five days a week. This program serves the entire community regardless of ethnicity, age, gender or socioeconomic status with a health-focused and culturally oriented educational approach.
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Current Reach and Potential Future Outreach of Girls on the Run
Dana Perantie and Yang Su
12-12-2014Girls on the Run (GOTR) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting health and self-esteem for girls in grades 3 through 8 in the context of training for a 5 kilometer race. This poster demonstrate using GIS to ask how well is GOTR-STL currently reaching minority race and low-SES areas; what geographic areas has GOTR-STL not yet penetrated; what areas should GOTR-STL make an effort to recruit in order to increase minority and low-SES participation? Where do high minority/low-SES schools without GOTR?
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Site Potential for Urban Agriculture in St. Louis, Mo
Joe Pirmann
5-4-2014This project explores how many vacant parcels are located within federally designated Food Deserts and asks of these parcels, how many are equal or greater than a 1/4 acre.
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MOBILE BANKING: A global co-operative solution for un(der)banked populations
Nella Porter
12-12-2014In the United States, 43 million residents (9 million households) are un(der) banked. 51.2% (22 million) of this adult population are unbanked due to travel distance, citizenship status, logistics, and costly operational fees. Based on US Census Bureau, they usually earn less than $25,000 per year and spend around 8.3% of their annual income in fees imposed by predatory financial institutions. 48.8% (21 million) are underbanked. This low-to-middle group have either checking or savings accounts, but rely heavy on non-bank providers for other financial transactions.These clusters are mainly African Americans (21.7%),Hispanics (19.3%), and Native Americans (15.5%). This project asks what are the risk factors of social exclusion among older adults in St. Louis? Where are the potential areas that older adults lived with higher levels of social exclusion? How and what kinds of intervention can be implemented in these areas?
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Socio-Economic Characteristics & Child Service Providers in Normandy School District
Tamerlan Rajabov
12-12-2014Beyond Housing’s mission is to strengthen neighborhoods, one family at a time. Beyond Housing does this by providing affordable housing and homeownership services, providing support services to families, children and seniors, being the catalyst for community-wide rebuilding efforts, empowering residents to be leaders of their own neighborhood revitalization efforts, and promoting individual and community asset building.
