SPATIAL DATA WAREHOUSE AND INTERACTIVE MAPPING APPLICATION FOR SUPPORTING DENGUE FEVER SURVEILLANCE

Abstract

Health information systems, like other information systems, store huge amount of spatial data in various forms distributed over databases of responsible agencies. Turning such data into useful geographic information is needed in order to support insightful and timely decision making especially for controlling epidemic diseases such as dengue fever. Therefore, this study focuses on designing and implementing a spatial data warehouse and developing an interactive mapping application as a prototype system. The clinical data relating to dengue cases as well as public health resources obtained from the Kamphaeng Phet Provincial Health Office were used as a case study. The snowflake schema model was adopted for denormalizing data from various data sources into the data warehouse. The system interface was implemented as a web application. It provides tools for the interactive analysis of multidimensional data with various granularities through maps and charts, which helps to facilitate effective monitoring and controlling of the disease outbreaks. The system was implemented using open-source software including PostgreSQL/PostGIS and Leaflet. The result of the user satisfaction evaluation showed that they satisfied using the system at the highest level in terms of effectiveness (= 4.58 out of 5), design (= 4.35 out of 5) and user satisfaction (= 4.83 out of 5).