How to join region polygons and patient spatial data

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11-01-2013 04:49 AM
IliIord
New Contributor
Greetings to everyone.

My problem is this:

I want to analyze data which refer to cancer occurrences in my country and examine their spatial correlations.

This means that my database consist of patient data, that have a reference to the region the patient comes from. My question is how can I relate all the data to the regions shapefile.

That is, I have a polygon shapefile with all 52 regions, but, as expected, each region has more than one occurrence. One solution is to have 52 separate shapefiles, one for each region, and then produce spatial statistics for each.
What I want to do, is have them unified in one database, in order to make comparisons, for example, between region A & B etc.

Any help is much appreciated.
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6 Replies
DanPatterson_Retired
MVP Emeritus
have you ruled out "joins and relates" and "select by spatial location" operations?
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XanderBakker
Esri Esteemed Contributor
Greetings to everyone.

My problem is this:

I want to analyze data which refer to cancer occurrences in my country and examine their spatial correlations.

This means that my database consist of patient data, that have a reference to the region the patient comes from. My question is how can I relate all the data to the regions shapefile.

That is, I have a polygon shapefile with all 52 regions, but, as expected, each region has more than one occurrence. One solution is to have 52 separate shapefiles, one for each region, and then produce spatial statistics for each.
What I want to do, is have them unified in one database, in order to make comparisons, for example, between region A & B etc.

Any help is much appreciated.



What you are looking for is normally done with a join. It's a good start to read this help topic: About joining and relating tables

If you don't have any spatial component in your database with cancer occurrences (coordinates, addresses, medical centers) then the best thing to do is summarize the data in the database. I suppose you will want to know the number of cases. The resulting table can be joined to the shape. Further analyses like occurrences in relation to population can be performed in the joined featureclass.

If there is a spatial component in your database, make it spatial (geocode addresses or make XY Event layer). Next, spatial join the points to the featureclass with the regions. Since it is a 1:many relationship you can summarize the attributes.

Kind regards,

Xander
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IliIord
New Contributor
hello Xander. thanks for you reply.

The only data I have is the medical records, so I know the region the patient came from.
I have a map of the regions and I want to put all the records there, in oder to have them classified per region, or cancer type etc.

PS: sorry about the cancer talk, but this is the subject
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IliIord
New Contributor
hello Xander. thanks for you reply.

The only data I have is the medical records, so I know the region the patient came from.
I have a map of the regions and I want to put all the records there, in oder to have them classified per region, or cancer type etc.
I don't have any summarized records, this is what I want to create



PS: sorry about the cancer talk, but this is the subject
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XanderBakker
Esri Esteemed Contributor
hello Xander. thanks for you reply.

The only data I have is the medical records, so I know the region the patient came from.
I have a map of the regions and I want to put all the records there, in oder to have them classified per region, or cancer type etc.
I don't have any summarized records, this is what I want to create

PS: sorry about the cancer talk, but this is the subject


If the tabular data is already in ArcGIS table format you can read in the help topic "Summarizing data in a table" how you can summarize it. If your data is in Excel you can use Pivot Table to summarize the data. Or use the options of you DBMS of choice. You summarize on the field with region "key". This key is also used for joining the summarized data to the regions shapes.

Hope this helps,

Xander
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MelissaMunroe
New Contributor

I think you need the help of a professional medical writing service. They can help you create your file or document in any format and process your data in a way that is understandable to you. You can use this medical editing services provider. Hope this helps!

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