GIS Day 2025
Congratulations to our undergraduates Oliva McLucas and Malcolm McCarthy for their abstracts accepted to the 2025 GIS Day at The Ohio State University on November 19, 2025.
Olivia McLucas: Introducing a Spatial Adverse Childhood Environments Index using Geographical Information Systems We extend the cumulative Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) framework to the neighborhood scale with spACEs (Spatial Adverse Childhood Environments), an index of structural disadvantage in childhood. The spACES index is constructed from county-level measures in the 1990 Census, including poverty, educational attainment, employment structure, housing burden, single-parent prevalence, and racial residential segregation, which reflect the environments in which the Opportunity Atlas birth cohorts (children born 1978 to 1985) were raised. The Opportunity Atlas links childhood places of residence to adult outcomes, capturing household income rank, educational attainment, incarceration, and family formation (2010-2015), as well as credit outcomes (2020). Using GIS, we visualize geographic variation in spACEs and assess its association with long-term adult outcomes. We propose spACEs as a revised measure of childhood structural adversity that captures the enduring impact of neighborhood disadvantage across the life course.
McCarthy, M.: Mapping Traumatic Brain Injury using Geographic Information Systems Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a critical public health problem linked to numerous mechanisms, including unintentional injuries such as falls and motor vehicle crashes and intentional injuries such as assaults. Despite the magnitude of this burden, no research has systematically examined the geographic distribution of TBI hospitalizations and their county-level correlates. We utilize county-level hospitalization data from the Washington State Department of Health, filtered to include all TBI-related admissions by year. These records are linked to the Area Deprivation Index (ADI) for the period 2016–2023, encompassing domains of economic hardship and inequality, educational attainment, and financial strength. The merged dataset enables the analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of TBI hospitalization risk and tests whether county-level social and economic disadvantage is associated with higher rates of TBI hospitalization. Using GIS visualization and regression models, we demonstrate how community structural conditions shape the distribution of TBI and inform strategies for prevention.
The presentations will be made available after the conference.
Malcolm McCarthy
Undergraduate Geospatial Analyst
Malcolm is a third-year psychology major with minors in GIS and ASL studies interested in pursuing a clinical psychology PhD.
Olivia McLucas
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Olivia McLucas is an undergraduate student at the Ohio State University. She is majoring in Statistics with a minor in American Sign Language on a pre-law track. Olivia is serving the team as photographer and videographer, while simultaneously working as a researcher assistant for the scholars.
Dr. Gia Elise Barboza-Salerno
Director
I am an interdisciplinary scholar whose research integrates law, public health, social work, and advanced statistics to study childhood adversity, violence-related harm, and neighborhood-level inequities. I lead the ISSUES Lab at Ohio State, translating spatial and legal analysis into policy and practice.
Dr. Karla Shockley McCarthy
Co-Director
Dr. Karla Shockley, PhD, LMSW, TRCC, FSW, is a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Consultant at the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center, where she leads applied health services and population health research. She uses a collaborative team approach to design and execute mixed methods studies, develops survey instrumentation, oversees qualitative and quantitative analyses, and employs various dissemination methods. Her work centers on translating complex data into actionable insights that inform public health.