Enhancing physician scientists' skills in Geographic Information Systems: insights from an interactive workshop

Area of Science:

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

Background:

• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are crucial for analyzing spatio-temporal health data.
• The Vanderbilt-Nigeria Building Research Capacity in HIV and NCDs (V-BRCH) program organized a GIS workshop in Kano, Nigeria.
• The workshop targeted early-career physician scientists to improve their GIS expertise.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of a GIS training workshop on physician scientists' knowledge and confidence.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of Quantum GIS (QGIS) training for health data analysis.
• To identify areas for improvement in GIS capacity-building initiatives in low- and middle-income countries.

Main Methods:

• A week-long interactive workshop was conducted for 33 physician scientists.
• Training covered core GIS competencies, including software selection, data visualization, and spatial analysis using QGIS.
• Pre- and post-workshop surveys measured changes in knowledge and confidence levels.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were observed in self-reported knowledge across all GIS topics.
• Largest knowledge gains were in geocoding health data (149%) and using QGIS (135%).
• Confidence increased most in importing spatial data (153%), navigating QGIS (150%), and mapping public health data (150%).

Conclusions:

• GIS training effectively enhances knowledge and skills among physician scientists.
• The workshop demonstrated the value of QGIS for health data analysis in resource-limited settings.
• Recommendations include longer training durations, local data use, and enhanced visual aids for future workshops.