I am going to use GIS and Story Maps in my project. Because these two tools are made by the same ArcGIS platform, I think that it makes sense to use them together since I will be doing so much mapping. Story Maps will allow me to embed my GIS maps easily and allow the reader to follow a pretty linear path without the restrictions that come with using a platform like Scalar.
My Story Map will begin with an introduction and my findings from my lit review. This will include sections such as “Vaccines,” “Why Vaccinate the World?,” “Vaccine Inequality,” “How Does it Work?,” “Problems,” and “Solutions.” I also have embedded some images and a map from Our World in Data to illustrate some problems and break up the text with visualizations. This aims to give the reader a general understanding of my project and the current problems that sub-saharan Africa has with vaccine distribution. I found that there are a lot of common problems and solutions for all of the countries in sub-saharan Africa. However, what commonalities and differences between each country have had an effect on campaign success? I then intend to move onto my new research after the background, looking at what factors are different between each country and have a correlation with how well they have distributed vaccines.
After my background and lit review will be where my maps are within the website. Combined with text analysis of the maps, this will hopefully show the factors that have the largest correlation with vaccine campaign success. The maps, made in GIS, will use the analyzed data I collected from Our World in Data as well as other sites. The different map layers will show each factor compared to each campaign’s (COVID and Polio) success. I then want to choose specific layers to show on my website. For example, if the countries colonized by the British had a better success reducing both polio and COVID, I would use the slider tool in GIS to show both campaigns. I would color code the countries by colonizer and have circles on top of one map for Polio and on the other for COVID so the reader could see both.
Besides GIS and Story Maps, I am considering using tableau to show some examples of the vastness of vaccine inequality around the world, specifically in Africa. However, most of my project will be using GIS. I considered using Tableau to make a flow chart of a vaccine supply chain, however there was already a great visualization from one of my lit review papers so I didn’t see the point in recreating something already made. I am not fully sure what exactly I might make in tableau, but I think as my website evolves it might become more apparent.