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Institute for Global Sustainable Development

Geo-spatial Mapping of Health Services in Slums

Mapping health services and facilities to understand how they are used by people living in seven slums across Africa and Asia.

By working collaboratively with multiple stakeholders, the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Improving Health in Slums hopes to benefit the population of low and middle income countries (LMICs) by reducing morbidity and mortality at the population level, and doing this at the smallest possible cost to both individuals receiving health services and wider society.

IGSD is delivering Work Package 1 of this project, which is led by Professor Richard Lilford and Warwick Medical School.

The aim of the NIHR project is to develop a competitive proposal which will improve health service delivery through digital innovation, benefitting the people who live in LMICs by reducing morbidity and mortality at population level, and doing this at the smallest possible cost to both the individuals receiving health services and wider society.

To find out more, please visit the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Improving Health in Slums website

Researchers now have access to very high-resolution satellite imagery. This imagery is increasingly being used for slum mapping.

However, current methods are not capable of a fully automatic identification of slums at a global level. This is due to limited contextual knowledge, the diversity of slums across the globe and difficulties in capturing slum dynamics.

To combat this, humanitarian and pro-poor organisations have been using methods for slum mapping based on crowdsourcing and Volunteered Geographic Information platforms, such as OpenStreetMap. These use data from volunteers to map local areas.

We can produce accurate geographic data by using volunteer data alongside optical satellite imagery. This improved understanding of the geography of slums helps with detailed spatial analysis of the current provision of healthcare services.

 

The project aims to map current health services and facilities, and understand how these are used by people living in seven slums across Africa and Asia.

  • Produce accurate maps of slums through the combination of digitisation of Earth Observation satellite imagery and volunteer mapping
  • Map geo-spatially health care service provision for slum residents and identify accessibility patterns

The project will deliver the following outputs:

  1. Accurate geo-spatial data about each of the slum sites. This will be stored on the OpenStreetMap database with open access for other organisations
  2. Detailed mapping of current healthcare services used by residents and accessibility metrics for the seven slum sites
  3. Integrated geospatial database of maps and survey results which can be analysed
  4. Printed maps of slums to be used in workshops with local residents, planners and other policy makers
Work Package 1: Geo-spatial mapping of health services in slums

IGSD is delivering Work Package 1 of this project. Work Package 1 aims to map current health services and facilities and understand how these are used by people living in seven slums across Africa and Asia.

Start Date: 01.06.2017

End Date: 31.03.2021

SDG3SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

The expected long-term impact of this project is a contribution towards the SDG 3 targets of:

                • Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all (3.8)
Our Partners
APHRC IUB AKU University of Ibadan
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