Image-diagnosis: visualization of community health levels and the impacts of determinants thereof.

The objective of this study is to develop a tool that visualizes health-level of communities and the determinants thereof. We developed Image-Diagnosis, which consists of mapping and star-plotting procedures. This paper presents this method by applying the statistics in Tokyo. The mapping shows the spatial variance of health-level and health-determining factors; star-plotting depicts health-level, as the circle, and health-determining factors, as the arms, in a star-shaped diagram. The animation of star-plots presents variations in health levels resulting from the specified changes in health-determining factors according to the models. Potential contribution to the decision making in urban health policy was discussed.