Part 2: Geospatial Mapping
One of the aims of the study is to look at whether different types of neighborhoods are good or bad for sleep.
To do this, we are going to be doing something called spatial analysis, using a combination of your survey data and data from other sources. Basically, this is how it will work:
1. We gather information about your sleep from our survey, as well as your home address.
2. We create a map of addresses, using specialized GIS software (learn about GIS).
3. We merge that map with other existing maps. For example, the Census provides us with a map of population density and rates of unemployment. We will be bringing together maps looking at a number of aspects of neighborhoods -- poverty, crime, noise, traffic, pollution, etc. We will then use these data to study the effects of all of these environmental variables on sleep. This will be done in partnership with the Penn Cartographic Modeling Laboratory.
These data will give us an unprecedented view of how the neighborhood environment is related to a person's sleep.
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