Welcome to this month's edition of the InstantAtlas E-Bulletin

In this month’s edition we focus on UK Local Government and International Public Health with reports from Yorkshire Futures, Nottingham City Council, Louisiana Department of Health and LIGA in Germany.

1. CLIENT NEWS

• 1.1  Yorkshire Futures | Progress in the Region Live (PiRLive) New Updates
• 1.2 Perth and Kinross Council, UK | State of the Environment Reports
• 1.3 London Health Observatory | Sport and Activity Planning Tool
• 1.4 Nottingham City Councill | Nottingham Insight migration with InstantAtlas Server
• 1.5 Louisiana Department of Health, USA | New IA 6 Live reports
• 1.6 Landesinstitut für Gesundheit und Arbeit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LIGA), Germany | New IA 6 Reports

2. RESOURCES AND NEWS

• 2.1 Formation of LIS User Group announced | hosted by Wigan Borough Council
• 2.2  Jacksonville Community Council Inc. | Community Indicator Webinar
  
• 2.3 Where to see InstantAtlas in action | UK and International event schedule
• 2.4 US Community Health Case Study (PDF) | Health Planning Council of North East Florida [HPCNEF]
• 2.5 Twitter authors | Technology Editor, Charles Arthur | Tech for Transparency
• 2.6 Map and report data with InstantAtlas | FlowingData.com review\z
• 2.7 InstantAtlas Training Courses
• 2.8 New customers of InstantAtlas
  

Client News

1.1 Yorkshire Futures | PiRLive site update

PiRLive | SingleMap Report - Click to View

Yorkshire Futures (YF) is the Regional Intelligence Network for Yorkshire and Humber. Its role is to provide data, information and intelligence to support and inform regional strategy and policy. Yorkshire Futures recently updated its Progress in the Region Live (PiRLive) site with the latest regional data. Accompanying the update is a new improved look to PiRLive which matches the parent website. Yorkshire Futures worked with InstantAtlas to rebrand PiRLive in keeping with the look and feel of the new Yorkshire Futures website and have also upgraded to the latest version of InstantAtlas V6.3.

Amanda Crossfield, Data & Development Executive of YF says: “We have used InstantAtlas to create dynamic online maps known as Progress in the Region Live, which show how our region is performing against a suite of high level indicators including economic, environmental, educational and social data. You can see how Yorkshire and the Humber, its sub regions and its local authorities are doing compared to the regional and national average, and look at trends over time.”

With PiRLive you can download the datasets in Excel format, or print out the maps for use in your reports and presentations.

Progress in the Region Live can be used to:

• see how the region and local authorities are doing against key indicators
• look at trends over time
• compare two indicators against each other
• compare the region to the national average
• compare local authority to the regional, subregional and the national average
• annotate and print maps
• download the indicator data in Excel format

1.2 Perth and Kinross Council  | New State of the Environment InstantAtlas Reports

Perth and Kinross Council | State of the Environment

State of the Environment Mapping is an interactive map that allows you to see at a glance how Perth and Kinross areas (e.g. ward, intermediate geographies) are doing compared to other areas and the regional average.

It provides information about the Perth and Kinross environment and community, including information on how clean the air is, what areas are susceptible to flooding and how many citizens are able to easily catch a bus from home.

State of the Environment Mapping can be used to:

• see how areas and local authority are performing against key indicators
• compare areas to other areas and the regional average
• look at trends over time
• print or download graphs, tables and maps for own use
• download the indicator data in an Excel or PDF format

To launch State of the Environment Mapping please click here.

Perth & Kinross also provide a general help guide [PDF 207Kb] which can be downloaded to assist  you in navigating the mapping website.
Alternatively, you can download summaries for individual indicators by following the links.

1.3 London Health Observatory  | Sport and Activity Planning Tool

New online interactive tool using InstantAtlas Server for people involved in sport and activity to help them plan their marketing much more effectively without the need of a GIS specialist.

London Health Observatory | Sport and Activity Planning Tool

The Sport and Activity planning tool has been developed by the London Health Observatory (LHO) and Make Sport Fun for the Department of Health and NHS partners. It is based on Sport England’s proprietary Market Segmentation tool which helps organisations target new sport and physical activity opportunities in communities where they are needed most.

This planning tool allows you to quickly and easily map where people who are interested in playing different sports live in your borough. It also allows you to see where any of the 19 sporting segments live. This means that you can now plan and target marketing much more quickly, cheaply and easily.

The tool uses data from the multi-million pound Active People survey, Taking Part survey and Experian’s mosaic tool, and was built by the London Health Observatory, using the InstantAtlas Server product.

LHO | Introductory Tour - Video

The sport and activity planning tool is available to public sector and not-for-profit organisations in accordance with the raw data usage policy for Sport England’s Market Segmentation tool.

Currently access to the planning tool for general public use is password protected, however please click on the image to view a video overview of the tool.

1.4 Nottingham City Council  | Nottingham Insight, preparing for the future with its migration from InstantAtlas Desktop to Server

Nottingham Insight (previously known as NOMAD+) is a shared evidence base that provides access to data, information and intelligence about Nottingham and the surrounding area.

This partnership system aims to improve decision-making, support partnership working and secure a better future for its citizens.  However, the Nottingham team quickly realised it had to address some fundamental issues in the delivery of shared intelligence between partner organisations. The existing bespoke system required high maintenance and development time with technical staff needing to support all parts of process. Data loading was resource hungry and difficult to keep up-to-date and the user interface was deemed not intuitive – and click heavy.

Moving to InstantAtlas Server brought many advantages for the team, many of them already had  experience with the desktop product, which they liked.  InstantAtlas Server also allowed the team to utilise OCSI Data Packs, which provided them regular data refreshes plus Server provided access to Area Profiler Tools, Widgets and Web Services.

“We selected InstantAtlas Server for ease of creating neighbourhood maps and graphs, intuitive ease-of-use, speed of operation, affordability and expected ease of implementation and integration with the council’s ESRI tool-set.” Mick Dunn, Shared Intelligence Manager | Nottingham City Council

Nottingham Insight | shared evidence base that provides access to data, information and intelligence about Nottingham and the surrounding area

About Nottingham Insight

Hosted resources including data, analysis, mapping, reports, policy and other documents, aim to benefit local authorities, partner organisations and all people interested in the growth and development of Nottingham and the surrounding area.

Key facts and figures relating to Nottingham and its communities, can readily be utilised for:

• Service and project planning

• Informing policy formulation

• Providing an evidence base for strategic decisions

• Promoting and marketing services

• Informing commissioning decisions

• Providing accessible resources to organisations involved in tendering processes

• Providing at a glance summaries and profiles for the Nottingham area

• Helping audit inspectors to easily locate the information they require

1.5 Louisiana Department of Health, USA | New InstantAtlas 6 BRFSS reports published

Louisiana Dept of Health | BRFSS IA Reports

The Chronic Disease Prevention Control Unit in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has just published its latest 2006-08 behavioural risk factor survey results at parish level.  This report aggregates 3 years of data for each of 64 parishes on 14 key health indicators. Themes span physical and mental health status, chronic disease and healthcare.

Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is one of 20 U.S. state departments of health that have included InstantAtlas in its online data dissemination strategy.

1.6 Landesinstitut für Gesundheit und Arbeit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LIGA), Germany | New InstantAtlas 6 district and town profiles covering North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)

The new reports cover 54 districts and towns (which are similar to English county boroughs) in NRW are compared using 16 indicators which focus on socio-demographic factors, health, and health behaviour.

To view examples of the indicator reports, please click on the following images (please note reports are in German only):

Comparison of district profiles

All 16 indicators are displayed and compared in a profile view. A bar chart shows for each indicator individually the value discrepancy between the chosen district and the federal average. Moreover, a second district can be added as a comparison variable. Maps, tables and an additional graph visualize at the same time the indicator value across all 54 districts.

Funnel Plot: infant mortality

This funnel plot is a useful way of putting apparent spatial patterns seen on a map into a more realistic perspective.  The graph shows the infant mortality rates in relation to the number of births in each district. Each dot represents a district. In statistical terms, all districts plotted between the green or blue lines  (respectively 95% and 99% confidence limits) should not be considered significantly different from the regional mean (red line), regardless of what the map suggests visually.  District variations from the average rate of infant deaths for the region may be purely accidental or unreliable due to the small number of cases. There is also a thematic map, a bar graph and a table. By using the mouse, districts can be chosen simultaneously in all four graphics.

Resources & News

2.1 LIS Usergroup for Northern England announced  – hosted by Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council

Following on from the very successful LIS workshops hosted by InstantAtlas in February, delegates at the events have started to work together in organising thier first meeting to work on LIS projects and discuss what they want and have been able to do with the InstantAtlas products to aid LIS development

Jonathan Caunce, Intelligence Analyst of Wigan MBC (Hosts of the North LIS workshop) envisaged the group being a kind of ‘open forum‘ for discussion on the LIS agenda, but with a focus specifically around the InstantAtlas product that members are all currently using / looking to use. Jonathan comments “From the discussions at the recent workshop it appeared the consensus was that delegates wanted the group to be informal with a primary focus on problem solving rather than a high-level LIS agenda as a whole.”

Wigan MBC have proposed a first meeting date for 2pm on Tuesday 27 April in Wigan for an initial meeting of the InstantAtlas LIS User Group?

If you would like to attend or suggest particular LIS topics please contact Jonathan directly J.Caunce@wigan.gov.uk

2.1 Jacksonville Community Council Inc.  – Community Indicator Webinar, hosted by InstantAtlas

“Learn and discover how Jacksonville Community Council Inc. employed InstantAtlas to support their Community Snapshot Project and the development of community intelligence across the County.”

On April the 1st  Geowise hosted a live webcast presented by our guest speaker Ben Warner, Deputy Director of Jacksonville Community Council Inc.

Ben’s presentation showed how InstantAtlas has been employed within their organization and highlighted the benefits JCCI gained in using the application. Ben discussed the new Community Snapshot project and presented some indicator examples of their online InstantAtlas 6 reports for Jacksonville/Duval County.

Click here to view Webinar

2.2 Where to see InstantAtlas in action – upcoming events

1. North America – 44^th National Immunization Conference – 19^TH April, Hyatt Regency – Atlanta, Georgia
   Link to the site: http://conferences.taskforce.org/nic10/
2. NAACCR – Annual Conference 2010 –22nd – 24th June, Quebec, Canada
   “Renewed Collaboration: A Modern Paradigm for Cancer Surveillance”
   Link to the site: http://www.naaccr.org/index.asp?Col_SectionKey=10&Col_ContentID=396

2.3 US Community Health Case Study

The Health Planning Council of Northeast Florida (HPC) has been addressing the healthcare needs of Baker, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, St. Johns, and Volusia counties (Region 4) for more than 40 years under a variety of federal, state, and local health planning initiatives. It strives to meet Florida’s healthcare challenges through planning, research and evaluation initiatives that target local healthcare needs and affect health policy. Download PDF Case Study for more details

2.4 Recommended Twitter Authors

In this month’s edition we recommend two authors and organisations who we feel bring real value to the development of online data mapping and technology solutions.This is not a one way street by any means, if you follow any Twitter authors who you think would be of interest to others just let us know, we’ll be happy to add them in the next InstantAtlas bulletin.

• Charles Arthur | Technology Editor, Guardian UK | No. of followers 11,390 | Bio The Guardian’s Technology editor. Posting the news, chasing the news on Apple, Google etc. What you got? – Follow Charles

• TechForTransparency | No. of followers 461 | The Technology for Transparency Network, an initiative of @globalvoices to map transparency, accountability, and civic engagement projects worldwide. – Follow techtransparent

2.5 Map and report data with InstantAtlas – Review by FlowingData.com

You may already know that everyone is talking about transparency and  many organizations want to do more than just post a bunch of spreadsheets. They actually want to visualize it and share their data in a way that can be consumed by the general public. InstantAtlas aims to make that easy – without any code. – Read More

2.6 InstantAtlas classroom training courses

Why not take advantage of our special offer this spring and come along to one of our classroom training courses.
This offer applies to two of our courses based on classroom attendance at our Edinburgh office.

Choose from the following options:

InstantAtlas Desktop Foundation Course

This course is for users with no previous (or limited) experience of InstantAtlas Desktop Edition, or somebody who having used the product wishes to refresh their knowledge.

InstantAtlas Desktop Advanced Course

This course is for users who are already competent in the use of InstantAtlas and wish to address advanced features of the product. If you have taken the InstantAtlas Foundation Training Course you will have the knowledge required to attend this course.

Dates for the next Two Day Course

April – Wednesday 21st & Thursday 22nd

Location – GeoWise Edinburgh Office

Can’t make these dates? –

See our online Calendar for alternative dates and book today

2.7 New customers of InstantAtlas

UK Desktop clients

Locus GIS

Northampton Drug & Alcohol

Borough of Poole

Eastern Cancer Registry and Information Centre (ECRIC)

Thames Cancer Registry (TCR)

Northern and Yorkshire Cancer Registry and Information Service (NYCRIS)

National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN)

West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit (WMCIU)

Legal Services Commission

North West Cancer Intelligence Service (NWCIS)

Amber Valley Borough Council

Crofters Commission

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly PCT

Bradford & Airdeale PCT

UK Server clients

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

St. Helens Metropolitan Borough Council

South West Public Health Observatory

East Midlands Public Health Observatory

North East Public Health Observatory

North West Public Health Observatory

South East Public Health Observatory

West Midlands Public Health Observatory

London Health Observatory

Northamptonshire County Council

Suffolk County Council

Health Protection Agency South West

Staffordshire County Council

Wirral Primary Care Trust

Bury Metropolitan Borough Council

Somerset County Council

Ireland

Energy Action

Australia

South East Sydney and Illawarra Health

Canada

Offord Centre for Child Studies (McMaster University)

Congo

World Health Organization – Regional Office for Africa

Germany

Bremer Institut für Präventionsforschung und Sozialmedizin (Bremen Cancer Registry)

Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Bayerns (KVB)

Landeshauptstadt München, Statistisches Amt

Stadt Frankfurt, Bürgeramt, Statistik und Wahlen

Switzerland

Justlife, Lausanne

USA

Alabama Department of Public Health

Altarum Institute

Arizona Department of Health Services

Center for Health Services Research and Development (East Carolina University)

Community Resources Council, Kansas

Hawaii State Department of Health

Health Planning Council of NE Florida

Illinois Criminal Justice Info Authority

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (University of Washington)

Kansas Department of Health and Environment

Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services

Pinellas County Government, et al., St Petersburg, Florida

Washington State Department of Health

To get more information on InstantAtlas products and services visit http://www.instantatlas.com today