ABSTRACT
COVID-19 dashboards with geospatial data visualization have become ubiquitous. There is a growing sense of responsibility to report public health data pushing governments and community organizations to develop and share web-based dashboards. While a substantial body of literature exists on how these GIS technologies and urban analytics approaches support COVID-19 monitoring, their level of social embeddedness, quality and accessibility of user interface, and overall decision-making capabilities has not been rigorously assessed. In this paper, we survey 68 public web-based COVID-19 dashboards using a nominal group technique to find that most dashboards report a wealth of epidemiologic data at the state and county levels. However, these dashboards have limited emphasis on providing granular data (city and neighborhood level) broken down by population sub-groups. We found severe inadequacy in reporting social, behavioral, and economic indicators that shape the trajectory of the pandemic and vice versa. Our survey reveals that most COVID-19 dashboards ignore the provision of metadata, data download options, and narratives around visualizations explaining the data's background, source, and purpose. Based on these lessons, we illustrate an empirical experiment of building a dashboard prototype—the COVID-19 Economic Resilience Dashboard in Arizona. Our dashboard project demonstrates a model that can inform decision-making (beyond plain information sharing) while being accessible by design. To achieve this, we provide localized data, drill-down options by geography and sub-population, visualization narratives, open access to the data source, and accessible features on the interface. We exhibited the value of linking pandemic-related information with socioeconomic data. Our findings suggest a pathway forward for researchers and governments to incorporate more action-oriented data and easy-to-use interfaces as they refine existing and develop new information systems and data analytics dashboards. © The Author(s) 2022.
ABSTRACT
Environmental contradictions loom larger than ever across scales, from the global coronavirus pandemic reaching into households to accelerated global climate change melting ice caps, amplifying dramatic and devastating wildfires, and flooding coasts. Environmental economics treats the environment, often conceptualized as "natural capital” as a commodity to be "priced” and factored into cost-benefit or profit equations. The idea of balance and sustainability crystalized in the Brundtland Report in 1987, where the driving notion of development and environment was utilizing the earth's natural resources for the greatest number of people in current and future generations. Political ecologists contest foldings of development and environment together and often directly address who defines and controls notions of "growth”. Eco-Marxist, green Marxist, and other related schools of thought take a different ontological approach to the relationship between people and their environment. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Brent McCusker, Waquar Ahmed, Maano Ramutsindela, and Patricia Solís;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
The uneven outcomes of the covid-19 pandemic in the United States can be characterized by its patchwork patterns. Given a weak national coordinated response, state-level decisions offer an important frame for analysis. This article explores how such analysis invokes fundamental geographic challenges related to the modified areal unit problem, and results in scientific predictive models that behave differently in different states. We examined morbidity with respect to state-level policy decisions, by comparing the fit and significance of different types of predictive modeling using data from the first wave of 2020. Our research reflects upon public health literature, mathematical modeling, and geographic approaches in the wake of the underlying complex pattern of drivers, decisions, and their impact on public health outcomes state by statetime line. Contemplating these findings, we discuss the need to improve integration of fundamental geographic concepts to creatively develop modeling and interpretations across disciplines that offer value for both informing and holding accountable decision makers of the jurisdictions in which we live. Keywords: Accountability, covid-19, decision-making, modeling, patchwork.