Table 8.

An example survey response from part 1.

Part 1 – Task 1
"How does the deaths/100,000 of Allegheny County in 1996 compare to the deaths/100,000 of each of the counties that border it?"
1. I would use ArcGIS (v9.1) to open a state map and identify the counties that border Allegheny County.
2. Next, using SPSS v 13.0, I would aggregate the death file and population file to get annual death totals and populations for counties by linking the geography table to the death and population tables.
3. Next I would compute the age-adjusted death rates for counties by year using the tables generated in the previous step (SPSS v13.0)
4. Finally I would generate a report using SPSS v13.0 of 1996 death rates by county after selected Allegheny and its bordering counties.

Participant who uses both GIS and statistical software for community health analysis. Above is the participant's response (in italics) to task 1 in part 1.