Members’ geographic distribution of Infectious diseases network

Targets

• Locate EIN members’ geographic locations (in Zipcode level)

• Find the potential coverage of each EIN member location by Thiessen method1

• Add new member location iteratively to calculate potential coverage and weight index of each EIN member location by Greedy Adding Algorithm2 (GRIA)

• Rank potintial new member location by the weight index

• Identify locations in order of the index (to be considered for recruit new members)

Locations of members of EIN

Locations of members of EIN and Population based on Primary Care Service Area (PCSA) for

main continent Member counts

Population by PCSA

0 250 500 1000 miles

Notes

1:Thiessen (Voronoi) polygons define individual areas of influence around each of a set of points. Thiessen polygons are polygons whose boundaries define the area that is closest to each point relative to all other points. They are mathematically defined by the perpendicular bisectors of the lines between all points

2:A greedy algorithm repeatedly executes a procedure which tries to maximize the return based on examining local conditions, with the hope that the outcome will lead to a desired outcome for the global problem. In some cases such a strategy is guaranteed to offer optimal solutions, and in some other cases it may provide a compromise that produces acceptable approximations.