Episode 20: The Power of GIS and CBPR for Public Health with Dr. Charlotte Smith

April Moreno 0:11

All right, thank you so much for joining us today for the public health networker. Today we're speaking with Dr. Charlotte Smith. She is a continuing lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. And she works in the Division of Environmental Health Science. Welcome, Dr. Smith.

Dr. Charlotte Smith (CS) 0:27

Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure to be here. And I appreciate the opportunity.

April Moreno 0:32

Thank you so much. And I just really appreciate that. I was introduced to you through the Esri user conference recently, I interviewed one person who referred me to you and I'm just really glad we've met.

And so you know, today, let's geek out over GIS. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit more about you, the classes that you're teaching, the work that you're doing in the field of public health and GIS.

CS 1:15

It's a bit of a circuitous path from where I began to where I am now, sitting here speaking to you and with a faculty position at Berkeley. So I started as a microbiologist, and I actually was the kid that didn't leave home. My first real job was in the department of Microbiology at the University of Michigan. Then I went on to Columbia University. So I was a typical lab tech working on some molecular biology questions. But then at five, I got a job with the New York City Water Department. And that really changed my life. So I was there for some years. And then I went to a French multinational corporation that owns and operates water utilities around the world, including 35 and 15. states here in the US, so I was director of water quality there. And then in 94, the French Corporation sold off the American holdings. So I started my own consulting firm, Charlotte Smith and Associates, Inc, and was consulting, and have been for many years, I still do a little bit of consulting. Although these days, my life is really focused on teaching and mentoring students, both undergrads and grads at Berkeley. So that's where my real joy is, is in teaching and mentoring. And but as I say, it wasn't a straight line from point A to point B, where I sit here today speaking with Yeah,

April Moreno 2:44

it's definitely an adventure. You know, there's so much we have in common as well, which we'll talk about off the record as well, but definitely a pest and water quality. And other things as well, working in a lab, I used to work with a rabid offices in Berkeley, many years ago. There's just a lot we can talk about. But tell us a little bit more about your public health story. And some of your experiences in GIS. How did you get started in the field of public health, we often hear it's accidental, many people just somehow stumble upon it, how?

CS 3:19

nd someone. Well, that was in: 2012

April Moreno 6:55

I took my first GIS class in: 2010

CS 7:56

I think you're right, though, April, the in the public health sector, that it's more recent, as compared to city planning or natural resources, those divisions and departments have been teaching courses, training students for quite a long time. And now in the public health sector, I think, in large part to the COVID-19 dashboard that Johns Hopkins put together. In fact, I didn't mention that in my little story that I've never actually taken a GIS course even though I'm teaching it I'm completely self taught until last year when I matriculated in Johns Hopkins master of environmental sorry, Master of Applied Science, in spatial analysis for public health. So Hopkins has a full blown accredited, safe, accredited, and a master's program in spatial analysis with that emphasis on public health. So at Berkeley, we have certificates. In fact, in our online Master public health program, we have a three course certificate, and GIS and spatial analysis for public health that anyone anywhere can apply to you don't have to be a Berkeley student to to get that certificate. But in terms of fully, you know, two year master's program, as far as I know, Hopkins is the only place that has that. So that's pretty exciting for the field, you know, to have more people trained specifically in GIS and spatial analysis and the faculty are great, there's really been enjoying it. And actually, not even the oldest person in my cohort, there was a fellow another PhD from Long Beach who was in the program. So it's a real mix. The card is really next from experience. And I'm just absolutely loving being a master student again, even though I have a doctorate in one masters. Anyway, in terms of what my students are doing, I'm very much focused on spatial analysis and GIS as a communication tool. So as I mentioned, Hopkins has the dashboard, which got quite a lot of visibility. That's something that ESRI had supported Hopkins and the development and continuation of that project. And so my students learn to make dashboards. And story maps story maps are a communication tool, they incorporate videos, images. And that's how I always when I'm talking about images, I always remind the students to use Wikimedia or creative commons license images, that's super important and a little more rigorous than just, you know, citing a journal article. And then you write the story maps have, they don't have to have maps, my students story maps always have maps. So they're going to be short narratives, images, sometimes video, sometimes audio, and then my students will always put maps interactive maps. So they really engage the viewer in understanding and learning about any subject. And I've had students do anything from food insecurity, to one student, less, Lester made a fantastic interactive map about the hospital bombings and Syria. I had another student wrote, or created a fantastic story map on human trafficking. And these these story maps that the students make, almost always have a call to action or next steps. So they're bringing in sort of the creative side, and also the advocacy within the story map. So that's probably my favorite part about the courses I teach. I mean, certainly the students are acquiring skills in mapping and spatial analysis, but then they express this creative side and have an opportunity for public health advocacy, or advocacy and whatever their passion might be. So that's, that's been really exciting, just teaching how to do that. And some other projects that my students have been involved in, we were part of the soul men project, which is the systematic observation of mask adherence, and distancing, which is a

CS: 12:29

Kaiser Permanente project under Deborah Cohen. In the research and evaluation division. Dr. Cohn has a project with 14 universities across the country, Berkeley participated, my students put, learned how to make a mobile phone app, a GIS enabled mobile phone, mobile phone app, they went out to the field and they observed the demographic characteristic of people wearing masks and not wearing masks. And then Kaiser put that data together with data from around the country to see if there were differences and who wears a mask who doesn't, when are they wearing masks, when aren't they and then can really help with, you know, public policy and encouraging mask wearing. And I think we're really seeing that knee now with the new variants that masks continue to be so important. In the best as I always say the best way not to get long COVID is don't get COVID. Right? So wear those masks. So that was a fun project that my students were involved in. And the reason I like these sorts of field projects, it gives the students an opportunity to get some field research to develop some skills and build their resume. Instead of you know, just being in the classroom listening to Dr. Smith, blah, blah,right? We have, we have another project right now. So I'm teaching summer session. And the students in my applied GIS class are working in collaboration with the gender equity Resource Center, and Wang and the Office of Disability Access compliance under Ben Perez and Facilities Services with my Anna Vogue. So we have this and also Cory I just went blank but another person over in facilities services that the team is has engaged my students again to learn to build the mobile GIS enabled mobile phone app we is ESRI survey 123 product which is super easy to learn how to how to make a survey on your phone. Then they are going out to all of the restrooms on campus. To inspect them, take measurements, look for California Building Code in ADA compliance, and also to look at the restrooms to see which ones can be converted to a gender neutral restroom. So we have as you know, it is Berkeley, we're very progressive, and we want to certainly make restrooms accessible to both people with disabilities and to people who don't want to feel comfortable when they're just, you know, answering nature's call, right? So the students are very, they're learning about those issues, as well as developing the skills to do fieldwork. And then they will, so they're putting the survey on the phone, going out doing the fieldwork, and then they'll display the data collected from this, the students survey. So little summer projects.

April Moreno: 15:56

That's exciting. Yeah, definitely. I'm curious to hear what are some projects that you would love to see more of in the future? In terms of your personal interests? What are some possible ideas of maps that you would love to you envision would be wonderful to see out there?

Unknown Speaker: 16:16

Well, I'm also, I didn't mention that half the year I actually live in work in Mexico. I'm a visiting professor at a Jesuit university in Guadalajara. And so there with my collaborators, Eddie, Tessa, other professors. It's a real, multidisciplinary group of social scientists, political scientist, health scientists like myself, we're working with the communities, and community based participatory research, which means even at the outset of the project, we are communicating with members of the community. And there's a few, some action groups and coalition's already set up in the three communities we work in. And so once again, we're going out with that I shouldn't say what that project is about. It's really looking at the behavioral, environmental, occupational factors related to diarrheal diseases and Kidney Diseases. And my specific focus really is not only the survey questions that we asked them, the community and that we've developed with the community members, but also the quality of water. And this behavioral questions are which water sources do you use? You know, what are your behaviors surrounding disinfection of water, because it's coming to them unclean and actually contaminated with E. coli, which is a measure of fecal contamination. So what I would like to see, my students are working with them, and then create maps, and we do spatial analysis to see if there are pockets or disease incidents. But I would like to see more involvement of both the students and each so in terms of mapping and working with the community members, especially at sort of the middle school, high school level, they're to bring maps, maps of their own area into some of these questions and solutions. And I think that works across the board, wherever we're talking about whether it's Berkeley or Mexico or anywhere in the world, when individuals engaged in their own community and the problems and solutions in that community that real progress can be made. So maps are a mechanism to do that everyone knows where they live, and usually what's around where they live. And we can really dig into some of the environmental problems and solutions. For example, I know there's a lot going on with coastal resilience and climate change. And where people on the coasts are more involved in you know, mapping things out and looking from problem with looking at problems and coming up with solutions that progress can be made.

April Moreno: 19:09

And so I guess, if there was someone, maybe a relative or someone who is just not familiar with GIS, maybe it's someone who is an undergrad in public health, I guess in a nutshell, or how would you describe the reasons why GIS matters? Why is it so important?

CS: 19:28

It's a bit as I said before, that where often leads us to why and we can I mean, we use maps not just to display data, but to explore data and and find sort of uncovering things that we didn't even know were there and place can often do that. And it can lead us to understanding relationships. Let's say we want to know, we have some data showing where let's say COVID-19 is high or vaccination rates are low. Well, if we put that on a map, and then bring in another map that shows other either demographic characters as characters, excuse me demographic characteristics, or political leanings, okay, if we blend these two maps together, sometimes that were will lead us to why why were COVID cases high? Or why were vaccinate vaccination rates low? That bridge using using maps and place can sometimes lead us to understanding the why part of those relationships. And then sometimes what we think of as the core of public health interventions, and solutions, right? So maps are essentially a tool and spatial analysis is a tool, but it has powerful ramifications in uncovering, like I say, relationships or why, which is why why is this happening? Maybe wear has something to do with that, or can lead us there.

April Moreno: 21:07

Totally agree. I mean, definitely, like with the pandemic, we have an upcoming episode with one of the founders of the COVID dashboard at Johns Hopkins. Right. Fantastic. Yeah. So yeah, there's just so much information that we really relied on for our own survival, during, you know, the beginnings of this pandemic, even because of that dashboard. So there's so much there. So thank you so much. How can we learn more? what are maybe some of your favorite GIS resources? What can we where can we go? How can we learn more about public health and GIS?

CS: 21:42

I mentioned I was completely self taught before matriculating into Hopkins, I'm a US. And I learned from ESeries learn lesson. There's a group there with an Esri headed by Riley peak, who has a fantastic staff and they're very in touch with the the community, the different communities, whether it's, you know, fire or utilities or government sector, sort of what what's really happening in those sectors as well as public health. And I've written a learning lesson for them. But there's now I think, hundreds in the catalog. And that's basically how I learned was through the Esri learn lesson catalog. And you don't have to actually have an account that when you, you get sort of a temporary access to the software to be able to learn the tools. So that's how I learned that Ezra has to sort of catalogs of resources. And then, of course, on YouTube, for those that are more interested or equally interested in open source software like QGIS, there are a lot of YouTubes. And sort of, you know, there's like everything that's a proprietary version, which in GIS, it's ESRI is sort of the main player there. And there's open source and QGIS is the main software there. So from QGIS, I would say YouTube's, for ESRI software there learn lessons, as well as there's a ton of YouTubes as well. But I like the learn lessons, because they step you through very clearly there's a an image what you should see on your screen. So even I wouldn't even say college level, I think for the learn lessons that are either in middle school, or certainly high school, they're very accessible. So that would be where I would send a person that knows nothing, where I like who I started seven years ago, not knowing how to spell GIS. And now I'm teaching at the undergrad and grad level at the top rated undergrad, university and top rated online MPH schools in the country. So it is learnable.

April Moreno: 24:09

Definitely, and you know, if someone has a passion for maps, if someone's really interested in, you know, just location data geography, this is a great place to move forward right into the field of GIS as well.

CS: 24:24

And you're absolutely right, although that wasn't me that I have a horrible sense of direction and never interested in looking at maps. That interests me is the spatial analysis and those end the using maps to find relationships. And the were leading to why incentive was my incentive, but I know some people love maps, they see them as art. I was never ever, ever there.. I like the analysis part - the spatial epidemiology the spatial analysis.

April Moreno: 25:20

Wonderful. Yeah, I'm definitely more on the other side, the visual side. I love the watercolor base map. Have you seen that? It's beautiful.

Unknown Speaker: 25:27

Yes. And that's one of the core base maps. So you can just use either the answer site, it's pretty cool. They have a whole bunch of new base maps that are fantastic. But still, cartography is not my, not my forte, but for the end, I see what some of the students that are just making fantastic maps and the story maps. I tell them keep the narrative short, because their maps are telling the entire story.

April Moreno: 25:58

Thank you so much. And I have the link here to your department. It's just public health.berkeley.edu. There's environmental health sciences and other aspects of Public Health at your school.

CS: 26:12

Yes. And I'll also give you the link for our online MPH program, which that's where GIS certificate and public health is through the online master's in public health. And just another shout out it is the number one rated online MPH program in the country. But you can take classes that are without actually being a Berkeley MPH student.

April Moreno: 26:37

Highly recommended. And so I really appreciate this conversation today. Charlotte, thank you so much for joining us today.

CS: 26:56

It was a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.