A research agenda: does geocoding positional error matter in health GIS studies?

Area of Science:

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Public Health
• Spatial Epidemiology
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Geocoding positional accuracy has been overlooked in health research.
• Positional errors in geocoding can lead to inaccurate health analyses and poor public health decisions.
• Current practices often ignore geocoding uncertainty due to a lack of methods and tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a research agenda addressing the need for quantifying, modeling, and adjusting for geocoding positional errors in health analysis.
• To highlight the impacts of geocoding positional errors on various public health measures.
• To outline key areas for future research in geocoding for health.

Main Methods:

• Review of geocoding basics, assumptions, and empirical evidence of positional error magnitude.
• Overview of the impacts of positional error on health analysis (e.g., accessibility, disease clustering, exposure).
• Identification of five key research needs for improving geocoding in health research.

Main Results:

• Geocoding positional errors significantly impact health outcome estimations and spatial analyses.
• There is a critical lack of standardized resources, validation datasets, and error models for geocoding in health.
• Sensitivity analyses and demonstration studies are needed to show policy implications of geocoding errors.

Conclusions:

• Addressing geocoding positional uncertainty is essential for accurate and reliable public health research and decision-making.
• A comprehensive research agenda is proposed to develop necessary theories, methods, and tools.
• Future work should focus on creating open-access resources, validation datasets, and error models to improve spatial health analyses.