Population geocoding for healthcare management. Technical challenges and quality issues

Abstract

The present work aims at describing the main issues related with population geocoding for healthcare management. Some of the available procedures for geocoding multiple addresses are described and an indicator of quality of the geocoded addresses is proposed. As a case study, the geocoding of population addresses of a set of 9 Sicilian Municipalities is described and results deriving from the use of two different methods are compared in terms of quality. Some potential applications of population geocoding in healthcare management are finally discussed.