Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Six talented teams of DLSPH students recently competed in a challenge to create ‘story maps’ showcasing important public health information in visual form — an increasingly key skill in knowledge translation. Teams used the provided data with other open data to carry out spatial analyses and data visualizations to showcase key public health messages using ArcGIS software and Story Maps.

The competition was sponsored by the DLSPH Data Science Interdisciplinary Research Cluster and Esri Canada. The interdisciplinary judging panel was impressed by all six submissions!

The winners were:

1st Place: The Covariates: Hungry for Solutions: Addressing Child Food Insecurity

Jonathan Sinn, Rachel Ma, Nicholas Chu, Anne Campbell, & Gabriel Tjong

​​​​​​​Mission Statement: To demonstrate the severity of child food insecurity in specific areas across Toronto and to put forth recommendations on how to address this public health crisis.

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2nd Place:  Active TO: Investigating the Influence of the Built and Natural Environment on Physical Activity

Sabrina Chiodo, Peter Haoxuan Ge, Devin Yongzhao Wu, Hanlin Zhou

​​​​​​​Mission Statement: Investigating the Influence of the Built and Natural Environment on Physical Activity

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3rd Place: Epic Epis: Toronto’s Opioid Epidemic

Sarra Abdalla, Brian Wooseok Kim, Katherine Lu, Konrad Samsel, Paijani Sheth

​​​​​​​Mission Statement: A geospatial analysis of the opioid epidemic in Toronto, associated risk factors, and areas to target for action

People’s Choice Award: Food for Thought

Rachael Jaffe, Chaoran Dong, Aranie Vijayratnam, Shaaf Farooq, Senthujan Senka

​​​​​​​Mission Statement: Understanding the density of healthy food accessibility and its impact on obesity related health outcomes in the Greater Toronto Area

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And check out these other excellent submissions:

Healthy Plate, Healthy Lives: A Recipe for Change, Starting With Food

Mission Statement A “Health-In-All” policy approach with a focus on a foods-based solution for the prevention and management of diabetes in Toronto

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Team Parks: What Makes Torontonians Feel at Home?

Kayla Esser, Khalil Kain, Amrit Tiwana, Benjamin Zhang, and Zhi Lin Zhou

​​​​​​​Mission Statement: To investigate the association between self-rated community belonging and sociodemographic variables in Toronto, Ontario