Dynamic cartographic methods for visualisation of health statistics

Abstract

The article deals with interdisciplinary research on health status data analysis and so-called ‘health cartography’ mapping approaches. In the first part existing cognitive studies and recommendations on map design are discussed. The following part describes current trends in cartographic visualisation and non-traditional methods for exploratory cartography. Examples and possibilities of modern cartographic tools for dynamic presentation, publication, and analysis of health data are mentioned. The term ‘dynamic presentation and publication’ describes the possibility of selecting the required scale to allow interactive creative communication of users and map authors and also the presence of active statistical tools. A medical web portal project for presentation of health data with special focus on cancer prevalence is described in the last section. The portal should be used for educational and informational purposes and exploratory tools will be part of it. Suggestions as to which tools would be appropriate for particular demands are offered.