PhD Thesis — Zone Design in Geography of Health

Project Description

My PhD thesis, completed at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne and funded by the Hellenic State Scholarships Foundation, addressed a fundamental challenge in health geography: how the boundaries used to aggregate spatial data affect analytical results — known as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP).

The thesis developed a novel information-statistics framework for optimal zone design — the construction of spatial aggregation systems that minimise MAUP effects in analyses of health outcomes and provision.

Key contributions included:

• Development of graph-theory-based algorithms for aggregating census zones into meaningful analytical units
• Application of information entropy measures to evaluate zone quality and homogeneity
• Implementation of the algorithms in a VB .NET desktop application
• Case studies applying zone design to NHS resource allocation and health outcome analysis in Northeast England

Skills Used

• VB .NET
• Graph theory algorithms
• Information statistics
• ESRI ArcGIS
• Health geography and epidemiology