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Precision maps for public health

Researchers have produced high-resolution maps of childhood growth failure and educational attainment across Africa between 2000 and 2015, to assess progress and guide policy decisions in public health.
  1. Brian J. Reich

    1. Brian J. Reich is in the Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27607, USA.

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  2. Murali Haran

    1. Murali Haran is in the Department of Statistics, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.

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Maps are key to revealing public-health challenges and suggesting potential solutions. Physician John Snow’s map of cholera cases and public wells in London in the 1850s was an early example of this, famously revealing that cholera is spread through contaminated water1. Two papers2,3 in Nature now provide high-resolution maps of health and education levels for children across Africa. Their maps will draw attention to areas most in need of support, and guide future interventions to where they can have the greatest impact.

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Nature 555, 32-33 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02096-w

References

  1. Johnson, S. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic — and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (Riverhead, 2008).

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  2. Osgood-Zimmerman, A. et al. Nature 555, 41–47 (2018).

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  3. Graetz, N. et al. Nature 555, 48–53 (2018).

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  4. Walker, P. G. T., Griffin, J. T., Ferguson, N. M. & Ghani, A. C. Lancet Glob. Health 4, 474–484 (2016).

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