Overview to Geocoding
Geocoding is the process of converting a text-based address to geographic coordinates (longitude and latitude). Address geocoding is important to many different research and operational projects, including to visualize locations on a map or link addresses to pre-defined neighborhoods. One common geocoding task is to link addresses to census tracts to identify neighborhood-level characteristics and social determinants of health (SDOH). In this video, Dr. Steitz discusses the process of geocoding and how different levels of neighborhood granularity can support research goals.
The POINT Geocoder
The POINT (Pipeline for Offline Conversion and Integration of Geocodes and Neighborhood Data) Geocoder is a free VUMC geocoding tool that is easy to use and is safe to process patient addresses. Unlike many other geocoding tools that provide only basic mapping functionality to geographic coordinates or census tracts, POINT provides an entire pipeline to process and geocode an address, match the address to a census tract, and map SDOH variables to the census tract. This video walks through basic POINT functionality and provides a demo of the geocoding pipeline.
POINT can be installed from GitHub (https://github.com/kevin-s-guo/point-geocoder/tree/main) using Docker on your local computer. Once installed, you can access the platform from your web browser or by connecting to the API.