In 2007 I took a GIS course prior to starting my MA - I was interested to see if I could do school again having graduated from my BA in 1995.
The final paper from that course took a GIS approach to look at the correlation between air quality and asthma. Please see below for the Executive Summary and a link to download the paper if you are interested.
“Executive Summary
It is well understood that there is a positive association between air pollution and emergency department visits for asthma in Alberta (Rowe pers. comm.). Within this context, we explored the correlation between air quality, as measured by ambient and point source parameters, and asthma related ED visit rates in Alberta. We tested the following four hypotheses:
H1: As the proximity to point sources increases, the instance of asthma increases.
H2: As ambient air quality decreases, the instance of asthma increases.
H3: Urban areas will have poorer ambient air quality than rural areas.
H4: Urban areas will have a higher rate of asthma than rural areas.”