Biomedical subjects

Samantha Cockings

Publications and source records attributed to Samantha Cockings.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Advancing insights into methods for studying environment-health relationships: a multidisciplinary approach to understanding Legionnaires' disease.

Recent years have witnessed important advances in the analysis of spatially referenced health data. This paper uses GIS and point pattern modelling to address previously unanswered questions regarding the spatial epidemiology of Legionnaires' disease. We demonstrate a distance effect for proximity of residence to cooling towers; mixed support for a directional effect; and some evidence relating to multiple sources. In uncovering complex conceptual and technical problems in the spatial modelling of infection risk we also extended the limits of existing point pattern techniques. We advocate further multidisciplinary research to advance methodological developments for understanding spatial environment-health relationships.

Air Conditioning↗

PubMed2006

Overall quality of outcomes framework scores lower in practices in deprived areas.

BACKGROUND: There has been much debate as to whether quality points allocated through the new general medical services contract are more difficult to achieve for practices in deprived and rural areas. We used multiple regression to assess the relationships between deprivation, rurality and the number of overall quality points achieved by each practice. Multiple deprivation was significantly inversely related to quality points achieved. Practices in villages and towns gained 2% more quality points than urban areas and hamlets.

Family Practice↗

PubMed2004

Zone design for environment and health studies using pre-aggregated data.

Many environment and health studies employ geographical areas as the units of analysis, either through choice or necessity. The design of these areas can greatly influence any observed spatial relationships or patterns-an effect known as the modifiable areal unit problem. In this paper we identify the phenomena and processes which are typically measured in environment and health studies and present a conceptualisation for their representation as data objects in spatial analysis. We discuss the circumstances under which we find ourselves using areas for representation and outline the application of zone design techniques for the creation of such areas in environment and health studies. An empirical study of the relationship between deprivation and limiting long-term illness in the former county of Avon, UK, is employed to demonstrate the potential usefulness of zone design techniques for creating zones with stable estimates and for exploring the sensitivity of relationships to changes in the zoning system. In particular, we illustrate the inappropriateness of the 1991 Census enumeration district and ward zoning systems for such an analysis and conclude that automatically designed aggregations may be a more appropriate basis for analysis than any pre-existing zoning system.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Users' perspectives on epidemiological, GIS and point pattern approaches to analysing environment and health data.

Despite examples showing the usefulness of geographical information systems (GIS) and spatial point pattern analysis in health research, there remain barriers to their widespread use within health service settings. This paper explores potential users' views on the relative usefulness of such approaches for analysing spatially referenced environmental health data. Our findings indicate that researchers and practitioners do not always prefer the approach with which they are most familiar. In addition, there is a need for higher levels of understanding of, and confidence in, GIS and point pattern analysis techniques amongst health service professionals. The greatest need is for multi-disciplinary research which uses the most appropriate approach for each investigation, rather than that with which researchers are most familiar.

Environmental Health↗