Georgia Department of Public Health | OASIS Web Query | Definitions

Presentation Information

Not Reportable
At the County level or higher rates (and percents) based on 1-4 events are not reported due to statistical reliability reasons.
Trendable Maps
Trendable maps are a series of choropleth maps showing change in spatial distribution of data in a selected area over selected period of time. Trendable maps share the same data class breaks which allows easy comparison between each map in the series.
Trendable Maps

Mapping Units:

Visible Layers:

Cities/Towns
A mix of both incorporated places (legal entities) and census designated places or CDPs (statistical entities). An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people. Places always nest within a state, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough, but can have other legal descriptions. CDPs are delineated to provide data for settled concentrations of population that are identifiable by name, but are not legally incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located. Each dot represents the centroid of the geographical area of the city/town. Click on the dot to get the city or town name. Reference Source: U.S. Census, January 1, 2013.
GA House Districts
Electoral districts from which State Representatives are elected. The Georgia Constitution requires not less than 180 Representatives apportioned by population from representative districts. Layer Source: https://www.legis.ga.gov/, Adopted 2023 – Effective for 2024 Elections.
GA Senate Districts
Electoral districts from which State Senators are elected. The Georgia Constitution limits the number to not more than 56 single member districts. Senate districts are apportioned based on population. Layer Source: https://www.legis.ga.gov/, Adopted 2023 – Effective for 2024 Elections.
Hospitals
Hospitals are the non-Federal acute-care inpatient medical facilities in Georgia. Click on the symbol to get the name. Reference Source: Georgia Hospital Association, 2021.
Interstates
Interstates are the freeways that are part of the Interstate Highway System in Georgia. The Interstate Highway System connects major cities within the United States. Click on the line to get the Interstate number. Layer Source: Esri, March 1, 2012.
Major Roads
Major roads are a combination of both federal and state highways connecting cities and towns. Click on the line to get the route number. Layer Source: Esri, March 1, 2012.
Perinatal Regions
The Perinatal Regions were established by the Department of Public Health in cooperation with the six teaching hospitals located in Atlanta, Albany, Augusta, Columbus, Macon and Savannah. The Regions reflect the hospital referral patterns for high risk pregnant women and newborns Each of the six hospitals has a Regional Perinatal Center which has contracts with the state and receives funding to care for high risk pregnant women and infants as well as to train staff from other hospitals in perinatal care especially for high risk patients. Reference Source: Georgia Department of Public Health, March 2005.
ZIP Code
Established by the U.S. Postal Service for distribution of mail. Zip codes do not generally respect political boundaries or census areas such as tracts. Zip codes usually do not have clearly identifiable boundaries, often serve a continually changing area, are changed periodically to meet postal requirements, and do not cover all land area in the U.S. Layer Source: Esri, June 1, 2020.

Base Layers:

Base layers are background information to provide contextual references for local-level maps. They are especially suited for tract-level maps and give real-world reference to maps you create in OASIS. There are three toggle-able (on/off) base layers:
Demographic Clusters
Demographic Clusters refer to the socioeconomic status classifications created by OHIP, and are at the census block-group level. More information here: https://oasis.state.ga.us/gis/demographiccluster/DemoClusters2011.htm
Aerial Photography
Aerial Photography refers to ESRI's World Imagery.
Street Map
Street Map refers to ESRI's World Street Map with street-level data for North America.

Data Classification Methods:

Natural Breaks (Jenks)
This method minimizes within-class variance and maximizes between-class variance in an iterative series of calculations. This method seeks to partition data into classes based on natural groups in the data distribution. Natural breaks occur in the histogram at the low points of valleys. Breaks are assigned in the order of the size of the valleys, with the largest valley being assigned the first natural break.
George F. Jenks is considered a pioneer in GIS educational programs. Through an award from the Fund for Advancement of Science, Jenks identified four key objectives for cartographic training. Robert McMaster and Susanna McMaster; A History of Twentieth-Century American Academic Cartography
Source: Brewer and Pickle. Evaluation of Methods for Classifying Epidemiological Data on Choropleth Maps in a Series. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(4), 2002, pp. 662-681.
Quantiles
  • Data values for each enumeration unit (e.g. county or census tract) are ranked from lowest to highest.
  • The total number of values is divided by the number of classes specified by the user to determine how many values each class will contain. The object is to obtain a roughly equal number of data values within each class. For example, if you have 100 census tracts and the tract data values are to be classed into 5 classes, each class will have 20 values (100/5 = 20).
  • In some cases, an equal number of values will not be placed into each class. For instance, if there are an odd number of enumeration units some classes will have a larger number of data values than others. If data values for the 159 counties of Georgia are divided into 4 classes, then some classes might have 39 data values while others have 40. In addition, identical data values are maintained within the same classes. Continuing the Georgia county example, if 45 of the lowest data values are 0, then the lowest class will have 45 data values all with a value of 0.
The quantiles method of classification is provided because:
  • Quantiles classification is one of the simplest methods of classification and is easy to understand and interpret.
  • Classes are usually centered on the median, a measure of central tendency, and "they group enumeration units above and below the median into classes with equal frequencies regardless of their values." This makes maps easier to compare with one another.
  • Many health-related measures are distributed normally (i.e. a large number of values falling near the middle of the data range with a smaller number of values on the low and high ends of the data range) making quantiles classification a logical classification method.
Source: Brewer and Pickle. Evaluation of Methods for Classifying Epidemiological Data on Choropleth Maps in a Series. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(4), 2002, pp. 662-681.

Definitions:

Data Classes
Also referred to as "class breaks" or groupings of data.
Ethnicity
Hispanic or Latino includes persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race. Non-Hispanic + Hispanic may not equal the total number of events due to persons of unknown ethnicity.
Maternal Mortality / Maternal Mortality Ratio

These are complications to the mother associated with pregnancy, childbirth and the time period surrounding these events. ICD–10 codes A34, O00–O95, and O98–O99 (ICD9 630-676). The number of maternal deaths does not include all deaths occurring to pregnant women, but only those deaths reported on the death certificate that were assigned to causes related to or aggravated by pregnancy or pregnancy management. Furthermore, the number excludes deaths occurring more than 42 days after the termination of pregnancy and deaths of pregnant women due to external causes (unintentional injuries, homicides, and suicides). [Hoyert DL. Maternal mortality and related concepts. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 3(33). 2007.]

NOTE: ICD codes are assigned by looking at the literal causes AND the 'pregnancy checkbox' on death certificates. This assignment is performed by NCHS. For more information on maternal mortality from the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which benefits from actual reviews of records, please click here: http://dph.georgia.gov/maternal-mortality.

Maternal Mortality Ratio = [The number of Maternal Mortalities / The total number of births] * 100,000.

Late Maternal Death

The death of a woman from direct or indirect obstetric causes more than 42 days but less than one year after termination of pregnancy [Hoyert DL. Maternal mortality and related concepts. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 3(33). 2007.]. ICD10 code O96.

NOTE: ICD codes are assigned by looking at the literal causes AND the 'pregnancy checkbox' on death certificates. This assignment is performed by NCHS. For more information on maternal mortality from the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which benefits from actual reviews of records, please click here:http://dph.georgia.gov/maternal-mortality.

Race
Per the Federal Office of Management and Budget, Directive 15 (1997),

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V1.9 (8/13/2024)