Past Research

METRIC Software to Measure Cancer Health Environment

Project completed

Background Information

The goal of this project is to develop the first software specifically designed for the access, creation and visualization of environmental measures related to cancer health behavior and resources, providing:

1. a user friendly interface for locating, accessing and importing data into the existing Geographical Information System,
2. automated homogenization of data layers to a common geography,
3. flexible construction of metrics to characterize the food, physical activity and health care access environments,
4. visualization, exploratory data analysis and ranking of the results to identify geographical disparities, and
5. efficient export of results into Esri shapefile format, Excel workbooks and XML. Software architecture for the prototype will be built to extend and customize BioMedware’s SpaceStat platform. Software design will focus on providing a user‐centered design to accomplish the workflow tasks described above.

Phase I Achievements

• Conducted a requirements analysis with the help of BioMedware software developers and our subject matter experts, Drs. Brownson and Lytle, to determine necessary functionality for an automated process that guides non expert users through the identification and import of salient data resources, the creation and visualization of environmental metrics, and the export of the results. Functionality included an interface to interact with open data API’s and import data in tabular forms, change of support to derive all data layers over the same spatial resolution, and a dataset tool to transform and combine imported data for the creation of environmental metrics.
• Developed and tested a user‐friendly functional prototype system (METRIC) that: 1) facilitates use of existing data through a programmable API, 2) allows the import and export of data to and from Excel workbooks, 3) uses geographic identifiers compatible with Esri products and standards, and 4) allows the recreation and modification of existing environmental metrics.
• Prepared a report that included: 1) documentation of the prototype system, 2) results of the requirements analysis (e.g.specific approaches to interacting with API’s and integrating data from diverse commercial and governmental sources, proposed built‐in methods and data visualization tools for constructing indices and visualizing the results,data standards for collection, import and storage of these data), 3) description of a linked data library that documents resources that can be imported automatically or manually into the software.

Phase II Achievements

NAACCR Workshop Proceedings

• Goovaerts:“METRIC Software to Measure Cancer Health Environment: NAACCR Workshop”
• David Berrigan “Environmental Metrics in Cancer Control and Population Sciences”
• Geoffrey Jacquez: “Baking a Cake – Focus Group Instructions”
• Recinda Sherman: “NAACCR Perspective on METRIC”
• Lawrence Frank and Nicole Iroz-Elardo: “Evicence-Based Planning Tools”
• Este Geraghty: “Esri Data, Platform & Commercialization Options”
• Robert Rommel: “BioMedware METRIC Architecture”
• Carlos Perozo: “METRIC Software Server Application”
• Robert Rommel: “Using the METRIC Client”
• BioMedware METRIC Client exercise.pdf

NAACCR Workshop Agenda: June 23-24, 2017 (Albuquerque, New Mexico)

Software Tools for the Development of Environmental Measures Related to Cancer Health Behaviors and Resources Workshop

Friday, June 23, 2017

8:00am – 8:30am Continental Breakfast

8:30am – 9:20am Welcome & Introductions, Goals for the Workshop – Pierre Goovaerts, Ph.D., BioMedware, Inc.

“Environmental Metrics in Cancer Control and Population Sciences” – David Berrigan, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute

9:20am – 10:40am Partners and Collaborators

“On Baking Cakes” – Geoffrey M. Jacquez, Ph.D., BioMedware, Inc.

“NAACCR Perspective on METRIC Project” – Recinda Sherman, Ph.D., NAACCR

“Emerging Tools to Predict Chronic Disease and Fiscal Impacts of the Built Environment” – Larry Frank, Ph.D., Urban Design 4 Health, Inc. (UD4H)

“Esri’s Data, Platform and Commercialization Options” Este Geraghty, M.D., ESRI

10:40am – 11:00am Break

11:00am – 12:00pm Introduction to Metric Software

“METRIC: Overview of Architecture” – Robert Rommel, BioMedware, Inc.

“METRIC: Server Side Description” – Carlos Perozo, BioMedware, Inc.

“METRIC: Client Side Description” – Robert Rommel, BioMedware, Inc.

12:00pm – 1:00pm Lunch

1:00pm – 2:00pm Metric Software: Usability Test

2:00pm – 3:00pm Break Out Discussion Session

3:00pm – 3:15pm Break

3:15pm – 4:45pm Break Out Discussion Session

4:45pm – 5:00pm Review of Day 1 and Plans for Day 2

Saturday, June 24^th, 2017

8:00am – 8:30am Continental Breakfast

8:30am – 10:30am Report Back to Group & Discussion

10:30am – 10:40am Break

10:40am – 12:00am Conclusions and Future Directions