A Bivariate Mapping Tutorial for Cancer Control Resource Allocation Decisions and Interventions
TOOLS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE — Volume 17 — January 2, 2020
PEER REVIEWED
Figure 1 consists of 4 maps that show county-level Pap test use by using 2 different classification methods — natural breaks and tertiles and county-level BCCEDP availability — by 2 different classification methods: natural breaks and tertiles. Panel A maps Pap test use by using natural breaks classification (3 groups). Three counties have suppressed data, while the remaining 43 counties are relatively evenly distributed across the low, medium, and high levels of Pap test use. Panel B maps access to BCCEPD cervical cancer screening services by using 3 groups of natural breaks classifications with most counties falling in the low-access category and 3 counties in the high-access category. Panel C maps Pap test use by tertiles with low use in the northwestern and southernmost parts of the state. Panel D maps access to BCCEPD cervical cancer screening services by tertiles with low access clustered in the northwestern counties.
Figure 1.
Choropleth maps displaying different classification methods for Papanicolaou (Pap) test use and Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (BCCEDP) cervical cancer screening availability. Map A, Pap test use with 3 natural breaks classification; Map B, BCCEDP cervical cancer screening availability using 3 natural breaks classification; Map C, Pap test use using quantile (tertile) classification; Map D, BCCEDP availability using quantile (tertile) classification.
Figure 2 shows an example of a 3 × 3 bivariate map legend with corresponding color codes for visually distinguishable hues.
Figure 2.
Sample 3×3 bivariate map legend displaying visually distinguishable color scheme with red, green, blue color (RGB) codes displayed.
Figure 3 shows a 3 × 3 bivariate map of Pap test use and Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program cervical cancer screening service availability by county. Legend: 1 to 3 = high Pap test use rate, 4 to 6 = medium Pap test use rate, 7 to 9 = low Pap test use rate. This map showed that the northwestern-most and southeastern-most parts of the state are in the low-access/low-use group.
Figure 3.
Bivariate map displaying Pap test use and Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program cervical cancer screening availability with color-coded legend. (Counties with hatch marks had insufficient data to map.)
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