About the Public Health Mapping and GIS programme

Origins and rapid evolution

The Public Health Mapping and Programme was originally developed by WHO and UNICEF in 1993 to boost efforts to eradicate guinea worm disease, which affects the isolated, rural poor, through the use of GIS. The system allows the computer-assisted visualization of disease foci, the monitoring of newly infected or reinfected villages, the identification of at-risk populations, and the highly targeted, cost-effective distribution of interventions. It is an example of how technologies developed to accelerate the control of one disease can expedite the control of others.

Since then the use of GIS and mapping have been greatly simplified and expanded to meet the distinct data needs of several disease control initiatives, including programmes for the elimination of onchocerciasis, blinding trachoma, African trypanosomiasis and lymphatic filariasis, as well as the global initiatives to eradicate poliomyelitis and roll back malaria.

The Public Health Mapping Partnership today

The Public Health Mapping and GIS Programme has now become a global partnership involving WHO Regional and Country Offices, WHO Member States, infectious disease programmes, UN agency and bliateral partners, research institutes, WHO collaborating centres and the private sector.

The programme operates operates through a wide partnership at country, regional and global levels. A WHO Public Health Mapping network has been established comprising focal points from WHO regions and country offices. In addition a public health mapping user network has been established involving public health administrators from over 80 countries who are working on public health mapping initatives at national and sub-national levels.

The partnership has a key role to play in the work of WHO by:
• advising national ministries of health in the design and implementation of GIS and related technologies in support of public health programmes;
• providing a core set of services and products relating to GIS and mapping;
• assisting countries in the development of core geographic datasets including the mapping of communities and health care;
• developing collaborative operational research projects based on new GIS related technologies with research institutes and private industry.