Athens County
                    Cooperative Land Administration
                    and Information Mapping system
 
August 31, 2001
 
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
 
                                     RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
 
Chuck Hammer, Athens County Health Department Administrator, is
working with ILGARD and 11 other health departments in our region to
implement a public health GIS initiative.  He has proposed a project
for grant funding from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation of
Nelsonville, for about $250,000.00 for the multi-county Southeastern
Ohio region.  Chuck has the full support of the Director of the Ohio
Department of Health, and the Association of Ohio Health
Commissioners, and is leading this initiative on behalf of Athens
County, to the great benefit of all the counties in the region.
Here are a few excerpts from his grant application cover letter:
 
"Through GIS, we will organize and interface public health data with
other relevant data in a geographical format.  This has powerful
implications to assist us in achieving our core public health
functions and essential services in a more efficient and effective
manner.  To apply GIS solutions to our communities and realize the
full potential of this technology and of our own community data, we
must first have data organized in a digital format, that is, in a
computerized database."
 
"The proposed initiative would allow for a group of neighboring health
departments to collaborate on a basic project to (1) instigate and
maintain a digitized data collection format, and (2) apply our data
thus gathered and stored to an active GIS in each health district.
The group would share a standardized introduction and training to
these new technologies, and share experiences through a "user's
group".  This will help each department grow and develop their
individual and combined expertise in adopting, using and applying
computers for data manipulation."
 
"Some examples of how GIS is a useful tool for accomplishing public
health practices includes:  The computer mapping of environmental
concerns, (such as mosquito infestations, illegal dumping, failed
sewage systems or contaminated wells), assisting sanitarians in
creating strategies to address the concerns.  The progress of
environmental clean up efforts is then efficiently monitored and
displayed using GIS.  The incidence or spread of disease such as food
borne illness, rabies in wildlife, vector-borne diseases,
tuberculosis, hepatitis, influenza or other epidemic disease are
mapped using GIS to focus resources, track progress and enlighten the
public as to reducing their risks.  Patient databases such as flu shot
recipients are coded onto a map and interfaced with census data to
show the effectiveness of the program in reaching at risk populations.
Responses to surveys of public health concerns are mapped per township
and village to assist health department staff in efforts to garner
statistically significant sample numbers, and then to tailor health
education strategies to neighborhoods.  Morbidity and mortality data
is mapped to assess trends in disease and death.   "Endless"
applications and intersections of data in a GIS are possible to
enhance and improve public health practice."
 
Athens County is so very lucky to have such a professional, innovative
leader in the person of Chuck Hammer visualizing, placing and keeping
our Health Department on the cutting edge of technology, and helping
other counties as well as our entire region to be able to experience
these important benefits.
 
Our Orthophotos Sub-committee met after a very intensive review of 13
submittals of Statements of Qualification in response to our Request
for Qualifications.  We chose five firms for further consideration on
our project.  These five firms will now submit Technical Proposals,
and our committee will meet next month to select the Technical
Proposal best meeting our needs.  Our plan is to be under contract
by October this year.
 
ILGARD has completed 12 Townships on our parcel conversion project and
is working toward getting them set up on the GIS web site.  Property
splits maintenance will begin next month initially on Lee Township.
 
Our next Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for
September 20th at 10:00 a.m. in the ILGARD conference room.
 
JB, Darren, Jill Thompson, Dave Owen, Ken Highland, and I met to
discuss GIS implementation of Parcel mapping in the Auditor's Office.
We will begin the implementation as a pilot project by updating the
Lee Township parcel file with the most recent property splits and
place the data on a central computer in the Auditor's Office serving
to the existing Auditor's Office personal computers running ESRI
ArcView GIS software.  We will meet again in a month to go over the
final installation.
 
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of
Athens County's future.
 
Archie Stanley - GIS Coordinator
555 East State Street - Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone (740) 593-5514 - Fax (740) 592-4616
E-mail: astanley@frognet.net