Creating the Baton Rouge Healthy Start GIS

Abstract

I recently gave a presentation to an Introduction to Gender and Minority Studies class at Louisiana State University. This was an interesting experience, as most of my talks tend to lean on the technical aspects (meaning GIS) of how to solve the problem of racial disparity in birth outcomes in the city. This audience was nontechnical and more interested in the injustices facing the poor (and more often than not African Americans) in the city. I would not have been comfortable giving this talk a couple of years previously, but 4 years of being attached to the Baton Rouge Healthy Start, writing continual updates and reports, applying for new grants, and attending all the associated meetings (e.g., evaluation meetings, project area committee meetings, Fetal and Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) meetings) have given me a reasonable insight into the causes of the problems as well as the distribution of dots on a map.