Geographic Information Systems and health: application to Antananarivo city

The general health status of the population in the capital, Antananarivo, is determined by a number of different socio-economical and environmental factors. A study was undertaken in 1998 by which the Geographic Information System (GIS) was implemented in order to describe characteristics in town areas (fokontany) suffering from a high disease burden. It was observed that there was a heterogeneous distribution of health care supporting facilities in comparison to population density in the different areas of the capitol. A risk-score system by use of an image-technique was elaborated. The most important problem encountered in the study was the reduced availability of standardized collected data. The results suggest that GIS constitutes a useful tool in assessment of urban health problems in order to identify fokontany in particular need of additional health care support.