Putting health in place: how geospatial data is revolutionising diagnosis and treatment

Associate Professor Susanna Cramb, QUT School of Public Health and Social Work and Principal Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation

Every day, our health is influenced by our environment. Yet often studies on people’s health ignore location.

Data is routinely collected whenever we interact with health services, but this data is often locked away and ignored. However, this data contains crucial insights that could be used to improve people’s health.

My research uses statistical models and interactive visualisations to put health back on the map.

In Australia, cancer rates and survival differ significantly across geographic areas. QUT, in partnership with the Cancer Council Queensland, developed the Australian Cancer Atlas, an online tool that maps disparities in cancer burden across the nation. One key contributor to understanding why differences occur is identifying the stage at which a cancer is diagnosed, but cancer stage is not routinely collected by registries. Using data from a pilot collection to inform the atlas, I mapped cancers by stage across >2000 small areas.

The results? Many areas around Brisbane had more early-stage cancers diagnosed, including breast, prostate cancer and melanomas. In contrast, many parts of the Northern Territory had higher proportions of advanced cancers diagnosed.

But location-based applications go beyond cancer, to any health condition.

Injuries are often preventable, but gaining a comprehensive understanding of their occurrence and the resulting patient journeys has been almost impossible due to siloed datasets – until now.

Using a large linked dataset, the Queensland Injury Atlas considers different aspects of location, in association with Jamieson Trauma Institute (JTI). The data includes ambulance, retrieval services (flights), emergency departments, hospital admissions, compensation schemes and death datasets. Where the injury occurred, where patients are transported to and treated, where they live and their outcomes, can all be considered together, in a very visual format.

By placing data on the map and allowing authorised users to interact with this to answer their questions, we can improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden of injuries.

Another recently completed JTI-affiliated project, the injury Treatment & Rehabilitation Accessibility Queensland Index (iTRAQI), examines the timeliness with which injured patients are transported across the state under ideal conditions. The vast distances of Queensland, together with few high-level hospitals across the state, can require severely injured patients to be transported for over eight hours to get to specialist care, even with our world-class retrieval services. This research has highlighted areas of poor access to emergency care and is directly relevant to determining ways of improving accessibility and ultimately, better health outcomes.

With the technology, methods, and software available now, the only restriction to understanding the impact of location on health is the data. We need health datasets to collect data on relevant locations. We need important details – like cancer stage – to be routinely collected. And we need to have timely data available. Investing in health data is an investment in better health.

Effective intervention strategies require evidence that includes ‘where’ as well as ‘what’. Considering location-based aspects of health is crucial to improve health and reduce disparities.

Want more details? Read the paper about cancer stage patterns, check out more information on the Queensland Injury Atlas and iTRAQI projects.

Associate Professor Susanna Cramb received the 2024 Queensland Women in STEM Prize Judges Award.