Mapping Cancer Prevalence in Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya, Using Geographical Information System

Abstract

Cancer is also a disease  associated with space and time therefore analysis can be done on cancer data to determine its spread, patterns and trends to come up with ways to halt its spread. Events that occur anywhere are associated with location and time thus spatial and temporal components of these events can be used to demonstrate aspects related to when and where these events occurred. In Kenya, Cancer is reported to be an important health issue as it ranks third cause of country's death. During the determination of cancer, geo-environmental factors and cancer distribution relationship examination is significant. To determine the spatial and temporal prevalence of cancer. A GIS cancer database will be developed using cancer data from the Elgeyo Marakwet County. A cross sectional study will be used. The GIS software will include the use of ArcGIS by ESRI. Secondary data on cancer cases will be obtained from the cancer Registers and cancer treatment card from January 2003 to December 2013 held at the Moi Teaching and Referral hospital (MTRH). The data will be recorded from the year 2003 to 2013 by the Eldoret Cancer Registry and contained specific data for gender and status (alive or deceased). To determine the cancer occurrence trends, the cancer incidence rates and locations will be obtained from Moi Teaching and Referral hospital (MTRH), and then a cancer density map will be produced. The ArcGIS 10 software will then be used to come up with   choropleth maps which show information by coloring each component area, providing an indication of the magnitude of the variable of interest. GIS provides an efficient means of analyzing and visualizing cancer data thus depicting trends and patterns of the spread of cancer in space and time. Different maps and graphs will be produced as a means to visualize and evaluate the extent at which cancer has spread in Elgeyo Marakwet County.