Create catchment areas
The only requirements for an NCI-designated cancer center catchment area are that it is contiguous and includes most (over 50 percent) of the cancer center's patients. Otherwise, it can be defined in several ways, which you'll explore by creating four potential catchment areas for a fictitious cancer center.
Open the project
First, you'll download an ArcGIS Pro project that contains the location of the cancer center and fictitious patient information.
- Download the Cancer_Center_Catchment_Areas project package.
- Locate the downloaded file on your computer.
Note:
Depending on your web browser, you may have been prompted to choose the file's location before you began the download. Most browsers download to your computer's Downloads folder by default.
- If you have ArcGIS Pro installed on your machine, double-click Cancer_Center_Catchment_Areas.ppkx to open the project. If prompted, sign in using your licensed ArcGIS account.
Note:
If you don't have access to ArcGIS Pro or an ArcGIS organizational account, see options for software access.
The project contains a map showing the location of the fictional Louisiana cancer center. The map also contains United States county boundaries.
The Contents pane lists a third layer, Current Patients, which is turned off. This layer contains information about the fictional patients of the cancer center. You'll use this layer later in the tutorial to create one of the four potential catchment areas.
You've downloaded and opened the project. You're ready to create the first catchment area.
Create a county-based catchment area
The first method you use to create a potential catchment area for the cancer center will be based on county boundaries. Specifically, you'll create an area that encompasses the county the cancer center is in and all counties that share a boundary with it.
Note:
The state of Louisiana is divided into parishes instead of counties. Parishes are generally considered equivalent to counties in the United States.
As the simplest option for cancer center catchment area delineation, this contiguous counties method is a good choice for cancer centers that draw most of their patients from the local area. However, counties can vary massively in size across the United States, so this method isn't appropriate for some areas.
First, you'll select the county the cancer center is in.
- On the ribbon, click the Map tab. In the Selection group, click Select By Location.
This tool selects features in one layer based on their spatial relationship to another layer.
- In the Select By Location pane, for Input Features, choose USA Counties Generalized. Confirm that Relationship is set to Intersect.
- For Selecting Features, choose Louisiana Cancer Center. Leave the other parameters unchanged.
- Click Apply.
Note:
Do not click OK, as it will close the Select By Location window, and you still want to use it.
The county, or parish, that the cancer center is in is selected.
Tip:
To view the selection on the map, you may need to drag the Select By Location window out of the way.
Your catchment area will cover not just the county the cancer center is in, but all contiguously adjacent counties too. You can select these counties by changing the tool parameters and running it again.
- In the Select By Location window, change Relationship to Boundary touches.
- Change Selecting Features to USA Counties Generalized.
When a feature layer with a selection is chosen for the selecting features, you have the option of using only the selected records.
- Confirm that Use the selected records is turned on. For Selection Type, choose Add to the current selection.
These parameters will select all counties that have a boundary touching the selected county. Because you changed the selection type, the selection will continue to include the selected county.
- Click OK.
The selection on the map changes. Now, the parish in which the cancer center is located and all six adjacent parishes are selected.
These seven parishes will make up your county-based contiguous cancer center catchment area. You'll export the selected features to a new layer to save the catchment area for comparison later.
- In the Contents pane, right-click USA Counties Generalized, point to Data, and choose Export Features.
- In the Export Features window, confirm that Input Features is set to USA Counties Generalized and Use the selected records is turned on.
Like before, you can choose to run the tool only on the selected records.
- For Output Feature Class, type Contiguous_County_Catchment.
- Click OK.
A new layer is added to the map. It overlaps with the counties layer. You no longer need the counties layer, so you'll clear its selection and turn it off.
- On the ribbon, in the Selection group, click Clear. In the Contents pane, uncheck USA Counties Generalized to turn it off.
Now, you can see the catchment area.
Merge the county features
The catchment area is made up of seven parish polygons. The boundaries of each parish are still visible. You only want the catchment area to be a single polygon, showing the boundaries of the entire catchment area. You'll edit the features to merge them into one.
- On the ribbon, click the Edit tab. In the Tools section, click the Merge tool.
Note:
The Tools gallery lists your most used tools first. If you don't see the Merge tool, expand the gallery. You can find the Merge tool in the Construct section.
The Modify Features pane appears. It prompts you to make a selection of two or more features to merge. You can make the selection by clicking all of the counties, but it's faster to select every feature at once.
- In the Contents pane, right-click Contiguous_County_Catchment. Point to Selection and choose Select All.
All seven features are selected. Before you merge them, you'll adjust the attributes for the merged feature.
- In the Modify Features pane, under Merged Feature Attributes, for Name, click the name and replace it with County-Based Catchment.
- Right-click FIPS and choose Set To '<Null>'.
- Set the following attributes to null:
- Area in square miles
- 2020 Total Population
- People per square mile
- County FIPS
- At the bottom of the Modify Features pane, click Merge.
The parishes are merged into a single feature.
- Close the Modify Features pane. Clear the selection.
- On the ribbon, in the Manage Edits section, click Save.
- In the Save Edits window, click Yes to save all edits.
- On the Quick Access Toolbar, click the Save Project button to save the project.
Create a catchment area with a buffer
You've created one potential catchment area, which was based on counties around the cancer center. However, counties have irregular geography. For instance, your county-based catchment area extends much farther to the northwest than it does to the northeast due to the shape of the nearby counties. This irregularity could lead to the exclusion of some patients from the catchment area.
The second method you'll use to create a catchment area is a buffer. A buffer creates a regular area around a point or polygon for a specified distance. You'll create a circular area 60 miles around the cancer center in all directions to represent a potential catchment area.
- On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Tools group, click Pairwise Buffer.
The Geoprocessing pane appears, showing the Pairwise Buffer tool.
- For Input Features, choose Louisiana Cancer Center.
- For Output Feature Class, type Buffer_Catchment.
Next, you'll set the buffer distance. The appropriate distance for a buffer catchment will depend on the local geography and the capacity of the cancer center. You'll go with a distance of 60 miles, but for other cancer centers, a larger or smaller distance might be more appropriate.
- For Distance, type 60. Set the unit of measurement to Statute Miles.
You'll also change the buffer method from planar to geodesic. Planar distance is calculated based on a 2D coordinate system, while geodesic distance is calculated based on a 3D spherical space. Because the real world is a sphere, geodesic distance always provides a more accurate result, though it may take longer for the tool to run.
Note:
You can learn more about the differences between planar and geodesic distance in the documentation.
- For Method, choose Geodesic (shape preserving).
If you were creating buffers around multiple points, you might also want to set a dissolve type to combine multiple buffers into a single feature. Because your buffer is being created around a single point (the cancer center), you don't need to worry about the dissolve type. You'll leave the remaining parameters unchanged.
- At the bottom of the Geoprocessing pane, click Run.
After a few moments, the buffer is created and added to the map.
The buffer you created completely includes the county-based catchment area, making it larger and meaning it will include more potential patients. The area it covers is also regularly spaced around the cancer center. (The buffer appears slightly misshapen on the map due to differences between distance on a 3D sphere and a 2D plane.)
- Save the project.
Create a catchment area with network analysis
The buffer catchment area captures straight-line distance without any regard to geographic or accessibility barriers that might limit patient travel. For instance, parts of the catchment area extend over lakes and other water bodies, where no patients live, and might also capture areas that are not connected to the cancer center by road.
Accessibility based on distance can be measured more precisely using an accurate road network. For your third potential catchment area, you'll perform network analysis to calculate an area based on driving distance toward the cancer center. To compare the results to your 60-mile buffer area, you'll use a 60-mile driving distance.
Note:
To perform network analysis, you must have ArcGIS Network Analyst extension enabled. You can check your extensions by clicking the Project tab on the ribbon and choosing Licensing. If you do not have Network Analyst enabled, ask your organization administrator to enable it.
- On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Workflows group, click Network Analysis.
- In the Network Analysis menu, choose Service Area.
A new group layer, Service Area, is added to the Contents pane. The layer has several sublayers, but no new features appear on the map. You'll need to set parameters for the layer first.
- In the Contents pane, confirm that Service Area is selected. On the ribbon, click the Service Area Layer tab.
Note:
The Service Area Layer tab is a contextual tab. It will only appear if a service area layer is selected in the Contents pane.
First, you'll import the cancer center as the facility to base the service area around.
- In the Input Data group, click Import Facilities.
- In the Add Locations window, for Input Locations, choose Louisiana Cancer Center. Click OK.
A warning message appears, stating that your input locations have an unknown Z coordinate system. Because of this, the Z coordinates will be ignored. This is fine, as Z coordinates are for 3D analysis, and the network analysis will be done in 2D. You can ignore the warning.
- Close the warning window.
Next, you'll set the travel settings.
- On the ribbon, in the Travel Settings group, change Mode to Driving Distance. Change Direction to Toward facilities and Cutoffs to 60.
By default, the unit of measurement used is kilometers. You'll change it to miles to match the unit of measurement you used for the buffer.
- Click the Launch Travel Mode Properties button.
- In the Layer Properties window, on the Travel Mode tab, expand Costs. Set Impedance to Miles.
- Click OK.
In the Travel Settings group, the unit of measurement is now set to miles.
- In the Output Geometry group, confirm that Standard Precision, Overlap, and Rings are selected.
Standard precision indicates that the service area polygon will be generated quickly and fairly accurately, but with a slight deterioration in quality toward the borders of the polygon. Since the purpose of your analysis is to get a general sense of driving distance toward the cancer center, standard precision is accurate enough for your purposes.
The other two parameters indicate whether service area polygons will overlap each other or be merged and what shape they will take. These parameters only matter for network analysis involving more than one cutoff. Your only cutoff is 60 miles, so you don't need to change these parameters.
- In the Analysis group, click Run.
After a few moments, the driving distance polygon is created and added to the map.
This catchment area accounts for some of the geographic factors that influence the cancer center's accessibility. In some areas, the service area reaches close to the 60-mile buffer, while in others, it is far away.
Note:
Using the same method, you can create a drive-time polygon instead of a driving distance polygon. A drive-time polygon measures the time it takes to drive to or from a facility, rather than the distance. Some health professionals believe driving time represents an even more important indicator of access to care than driving distance.
The service area polygon was not created as a new layer, but added to one of the sublayers of the Service Area group layer. You'll export it to its own layer.
- In the Contents pane, under Service Area, right-click the Polygons sublayer, point to Data, and choose Export Features.
- In the Export Features window, for Output Feature Class, type Driving_Distance_Catchment. Click OK.
The service area polygon is exported as a new layer. You no longer need the Service Area group layer.
- In the Contents pane, right-click Service Area and choose Remove.
- Save the project.
Create a catchment area with patient data
To define your last potential catchment area, you'll use the cancer center's patient data to create an area that includes the majority of the core cancer patients.
First, you'll identify spatial outliers in your patient data and filter them from the dataset. Then, you'll aggregate the remaining patient point data into a polygon to serve as the basis of your catchment.
- In the Contents pane, check the box next to the Current Patients layer to turn it on.
The patients appear on the map as points.
While most patients are close to the cancer center, there are some patients as far away as Arkansas and Texas. These outliers could skew your catchment area to be much larger than the cancer center is equipped to handle, so you'll identify and exclude them.
- On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Geoprocessing group, click Tools.
- In the Geoprocessing pane, in the search box, type Spatial Outlier Detection. In the list of results, click the Spatial Outlier Detection tool.
This tool uses statistics to detect outliers in a dataset. It determines outliers based on distance from other features.
- For Input Features, choose Current Patients. For Output Features, type Patient_Outlier_Detection.
Next, you'll set parameters for the statistical method used to detect outliers. You'll search for local, rather than global, outliers. A global outlier is one that is far away from all other points in the feature class, while a local outlier is one that is far away from its nearest neighbors.
By searching for local outliers, some outliers that are relatively close to the hospital may be excluded. For your catchment area, this is acceptable. Your goal is to create a catchment surrounding the majority of patient clusters. Outliers, even those relatively close to the hospital, might skew the catchment area's demographics and population.
- For Outlier Type, choose Local.
For local outlier detection, the number of neighbors used for the analysis must be at least 2.
- For Number of Neighbors, type 2.
You'll also set the tool to consider 10 percent of all locations as outliers. This value is an estimate but should account for all patients that are far from any nearby neighbors.
- For Percent of Locations Considered Outliers, type 10.
- Click Run.
The tool runs and completes with warnings. The warning indicates that there are three locations with coincident features that should be considered carefully when interpreting the tool results. The number of locations to be considered is low, and probably won't skew your results much, so you'll ignore the warning.
On the map, inliers are shown as gray points, while outliers are shown as larger orange points.
You'll filter the dataset to show only inliers.
- In the Contents pane, double-click Patient_Outlier_Detection.
The Layer Properties window appears.
- Click the Definition Query tab. Click New definition query.
- Create a query that reads Where Outlier ID is equal to 0.
- At the bottom of the Layer Properties window, click OK.
The outliers are filtered from the dataset.
Next, you'll aggregate the inlier points. Aggregating the points will create polygon features around the point clusters that you can use as the basis of your patient-based catchment area.
- In the Geoprocessing pane, click the Back button.
- Search for and open the Aggregate Points (Cartography Tools) tool.
- For Input Features, choose Patient_Outlier_Detection. Confirm that Use the filtered records is turned on.
- For Output Feature Class, type Aggregate_Patients_Catchment.
You'll set the aggregation distance to 60 miles. This distance will ensure the aggregation polygon is only created around patients that are within 60 miles of another patient. Though you excluded most outliers already, this distance will ensure any that remain are not included in the final result.
- For Aggregate Distance, type 60 and choose Statute Miles.
- Click Run.
The tool runs and the aggregated polygon is created.
Protect patient data
The aggregated patient data polygon has vertices directly on patient home addresses. To ensure your patient information remains private, you'll create a small, 5-mile buffer around the core patients' home addresses. This buffer will ensure that a patient's home address is not a vertex for the catchment polygon you create.
- On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Tools group, click Pairwise Buffer.
- In the Geoprocessing pane, for Input Features, choose Aggregate_Patients_Catchment. For Output Features, type Aggregate_Patients_Catchment_Buffer.
- For Distance, type 5 and choose Statute Miles. For Method, choose Geodesic (shape preserving).
- Click Run.
The tool runs and the buffer feature is added to the map.
Now, the catchment area does not use a patient address as a vertex, protecting patient privacy. You can remove the unbuffered aggregation catchment from the map.
- In the Contents pane, right-click Aggregate_Patients_Catchment and choose Remove.
- Save the project.
You've created four potential catchment areas for the cancer center, each using a different method. One catchment area was based on country boundaries, one on a buffer, one on a driving distance service area, and one on aggregated patient data.
The methods differed in their level of complexity, accuracy, and inclusiveness. Choosing the best method for your cancer center will depend on the organization's goals and the local geography.
Compare catchment areas
Now that you've created four potential catchment areas, you'll compare them. First, you'll create infographics that show demographic and health data for the populations within each catchment area. Then, you'll create a map series to compare the four areas visually.
Clean up the data
Before you compare the catchment areas, you'll clean up the layers you created. You'll remove layers you no longer need, change layer names and symbols, and remove transparency.
- In the Contents pane, right-click Patient_Outlier_Detection and choose Remove.
- Right-click USA Counties Generalized and choose Remove. Under Standalone Tables, right-click Aggregate_Patients_Catchment_Tbl and choose Remove.
Now, the map contains only the cancer center, its patients, and the four catchment area polygons.
Tip:
If you ever remove a layer from your map by accident, you can add it back to the map from the project geodatabase. In the Catalog pane, expand Databases and expand cancer_center_catchment_areas.gdb. Any layer can be added by right-clicking it and choosing Add To Current Map.
- In the Contents pane, click Aggregate_Patients_Catchment_Buffer to select it and click it again to make the name editable. Change the name to Aggregate Patients Catchment.
- Rename the following layers:
- Rename Driving_Distance_Catchment to 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment.
- Rename Buffer_Catchment to 60-Mile Buffer Catchment.
- Rename Contiguous_County_Catchment to Contiguous County Catchment.
Now, the layers on the map have clean and descriptive names.
Next, you'll symbolize each catchment area using a default symbol. For simplicity, the project package you downloaded contains the specific symbol you'll use as a style, so you only have to pick the symbol from the symbol gallery.
- In the Contents pane, click the symbol for Aggregate Patients Catchment.
The Symbology pane appears, showing a gallery of symbols. The Catchment Area symbol, which was added to the project as a custom style, appears at the top of the gallery.
- In the gallery, click Catchment Area.
The symbol changes automatically.
- For the 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment, 60-Mile Buffer Catchment, and Contiguous County Catchment layers, change the symbol to the Catchment Area symbol.
The layers all have the same symbol.
The 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment and Contiguous County Catchment layers have layer transparency by default, which is causing their symbols to look slightly different. You'll remove the transparency.
- In the Contents pane, click 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment to select it.
- On the ribbon, click the Feature Layer tab. In the Effects group, change Transparency to 0.0%.
- In the Contents pane, click Contiguous County Catchment to select it. Change Transparency to 0.0%.
Now, all catchment areas appear in the same way on the map.
Add name fields
The infographics you'll create will use a name field in the attribute table of your catchment areas to identify them at the top of the infographic. Not all of your catchment area layers have a correctly formatted name field, so you'll add them.
- In the Contents pane, right-click Aggregate Patients Catchment and choose Attribute Table.
The layer's table appears. The layer does not have a name field.
- In the table, click the Add Field button.
The Fields view appears, listing the table's fields. At the bottom of the list, a new field is added.
- For the new field, for Field Name, type Name. For Data Type, double-click Long and choose Text.
- Close the Fields view. When prompted to save changes, click Save.
You return to the attribute table, which now has a Name field with a cell that reads <Null>.
- Double-click <Null>, type Aggregate Patients Catchment, and press Enter.
Tip:
If a field is too small to see all of the text, you can expand it by dragging its right edge.
The layer has an appropriate name field. You'll repeat the process for the other catchment area layers.
- Close the attribute table. In the Contents pane, right-click the 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment layer and choose Attribute Table.
This layer already has a Name field, but it doesn't contain a descriptive name.
- Under Name, double-click Louisiana Hospital : 0 - 60. Type 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment and press Enter.
- Close the attribute table and open the attribute table for the 60-Mile Buffer Catchment layer. Change the name in the Name field to 60-Mile Buffer Catchment.
- Close the attribute table and open the attribute table for the Contiguous County Catchment layer. Change the name in the Name field to Contiguous County Catchment.
- Close the attribute table.
Because you made edits to the layer data, you need to save them before continuing.
- On the ribbon, click the Edit tab. In the Manage Edits group, click Save.
- In the Save Edits window, click Yes.
The edits are saved.
- Save the project.
Create infographics
Each of the four catchment area polygons you created cover a different area and represent different population characteristics. The cancer center has several goals for choosing its catchment area. The catchment area should represent a significant majority of the patients already served, it should avoid including travel distances that are too great, and it should include population that might otherwise be unserved or underserved.
To address your health-care system's goals, it's important to consider demographic and health information in each catchment before choosing the final cancer center catchment area boundary. To do so, you'll create infographics that show this information.
- On the ribbon, click the Map tab. In the Inquiry group, click the Infographics button.
The pointer changes, showing an infographic icon when you point to the map. You can display infographics for any polygon you select.
- In the Contents pane, turn off the Current Patients layer. On the map, click the largest catchment area polygon, Aggregate Patients Catchment.
The Infographics window appears. After a few moments, an infographic showing key facts about the selected catchment area is created.
Tip:
You can resize the window to see the infographic in more detail. You can also change the Zoom option to display the infographic at a larger or smaller size.
There are several templates for infographics you can choose from, including one template tailored to health-care statistics. You'll use that one.
- For Template, choose Health Care and Insurance Statistics.
This infographic contains information about health insurance coverage and types, health-care expenditures, and general population data.
This information is useful for decision-makers at the cancer center, but it's even more valuable when you compare it to the same information for the other potential catchment areas.
- Turn on the Compare switch.
- In the Add Features from the Map window, click OK.
You can now select an additional feature on the map to compare.
- If necessary, drag or resize the Infographics window so you can see the catchment areas on the map.
- In the Contents pane, turn off Aggregate Patients Catchment. On the map, click the 60-Mile Driving Distance Catchment polygon to select it.
The Infographics window becomes the Comparison window, showing infographics for both features side-by-side.
You can also compare infographics for all four areas at once.
- On the map, select the 60-Mile Buffer Catchment polygon.
A third infographic is added to the Comparison window.
- On the map, select the Contiguous County Catchment polygon. (You may need to turn off the other catchment areas to select it.)
Now, all four catchment areas have an infographic.
What can you learn from this side-by-side comparison? First, three of the catchment areas have similar average annual health insurance expenditures, but the contiguous county catchment has expenditures that are about $200 higher on average. This higher average expenditure is balanced by this catchment having the smallest area, and thus the smallest population.
The largest catchment area has a population of about 3 million people, while the smallest has a population of about 800,000. The size and capacity of the cancer center will likely determine which catchment area population value is most appropriate for the cancer center to service.
You'll export the infographics so they can be shared or used in presentations.
- In the Comparison window, click the Export infographics button.
Note:
It costs credits to export infographics. If you don't want to spend credits, you can skip the step of exporting the infographics.
The Export Infographics window appears. By default, the infographics will be exported as PDFs. You can add a header or footer with more information.
- Click Export.
A file called Health Care and Insurance Statistics.pdf is downloaded to your machine. This file contains the four infographics, as displayed in the Comparison window.
Tip:
If you want the infographics to be displayed in a different way, you can adjust the Zoom and View settings in the Comparison window. You can also turn off the Compare switch and export an infographic for just one catchment area.
- Close the Comparison window. In the Contents pane, turn on any of the catchment area layers you turned off.
- Save the project.
Create a map series
The infographics compared demographic data about each catchment area, but you also want a way to compare the areas themselves for presentations and reports. Displaying all four polygons at once is difficult, because they overlap, making it difficult to tell which boundaries belong to which catchment areas.
To solve this problem, you'll create a map series. A map series allows you to export multiple maps of the same location as a single document. You'll create a map series with four maps, one for each potential catchment area.
First, you'll group the four catchment area layers.
- In the Contents pane, press Shift and select all four catchment area layers.
- Right-click any of the selected layers and choose Group.
The selected layers are grouped into a new group layer.
- In the Contents pane, click New Group Layer to select it. Click it again to make the name editable and rename it to Potential Catchment Areas.
You'll change the group type so that only one catchment area can be displayed at a time.
- If necessary, click Potential Catchment Areas to select it. On the ribbon, click the Group Layer tab.
- In the Options group, click Group Type and choose Radio.
By default, Aggregate Patients Catchment is turned on, while the other three catchment areas are turned off.
Next, you'll insert a new map layout. A layout is a way of displaying your map for exporting or printing. A map series is one of the ways you can display your map using a layout.
- On the ribbon, click the Insert tab. In the Project group, click New Layout and choose Letter 8.5x11.
The Layout view is added to the project. It's currently empty. You'll need to insert your map.
- On the ribbon, in the Map Frames group, click Map Frame and choose Map.
You'll draw the extent of the map frame on the layout.
- In the Layout view, click and drag the pointer from one corner of the empty layout to the opposite corner.
The map frame completely fills the layout.
The map has a lot of space that doesn't display your catchment areas. The map series you create will require every map to use the same extent, so you'll set the largest catchment area as the map frame extent.
- In the Contents pane, double-click Map Frame.
The Element pane appears for the map frame.
- In the Element pane, click the Display Options tab.
- Under Location Settings, click the Extent button.
- In the Map Frame Extent window, for Get extent from, click Aggregate Patients Catchment. Click OK.
The map frame zooms to the extent of the largest catchment area. Next, you'll add the map series.
- On the ribbon, in the Map Frames group, click Map Series and choose Thematic.
The Layout Properties window appears, showing the options for your map series. By default, your map frame is chosen as the map frame and your Potential Catchment Areas group layer is chosen as the radio group layer.
- Click OK.
The Contents pane changes to show the four pages of your map series. There is one page for each potential catchment area.
Format the map series
You've created a map series with four pages. You'll add a dynamic title that will change depending on which page you look at.
- On the ribbon, on the Insert tab, in the Graphics and Text group, click Dynamic Text.
- In the menu, scroll down to the Map Series section and click Page Name.
- Draw a box at the top of the layout where you'd like the title to be.
The text is small and not centered. Also, the text box you drew is probably not perfectly centered. You'll align the text box to the page, then change the text content and formatting.
- On the layout, right-click the border of the text box, point to Align, and choose Align to Page.
- Right-click the border of the text box again, point to Align, and choose Align Center.
Now, the text box is perfectly centered on the layout.
When you added the text box, the Element pane updated to display options for it. You'll use these options to make the title more descriptive.
- In the Element pane, for Text, click before Page Name and press Enter to add another line to the title. On the new line, type Potential NCI-Designated Cancer Center Catchment Areas.
- Replace the Page Name text with Catchment Type.
The text is automatically updated on the layout. Next, you'll resize the text and make it horizontally aligned.
- Click Text Symbol.
- For Size, choose 22 pt.
- Expand the Position section. For Horizontal alignment, choose Center.
- At the bottom of the pane, click Apply.
The changes are applied to the layout. Now, the title is formatted appropriately.
For more detail, you could also add other standard map elements to the layout, such as a scale bar, a north arrow, or a legend. For this tutorial, you won't add these elements.
- Save the project.
Export the map series
Next, you'll export the layout as a PDF with four pages, one for each map in your map series.
- On the ribbon, click the Share tab. In the Output group, click the Export Layout button.
- In the Export Layout pane, for File Type, choose PDF.
- Optionally, under Name, choose the location and name of the PDF.
Tip:
It's recommended that you choose a location on your computer you can easily access.
- Click the Map Series tab.
- Under Pages, select All (4 pages).
- For Files, choose Single File.
- At the bottom of the pane, click Export.
After a few moments, the file is exported.
- Under Export Completed, click View exported file.
The PDF appears. It contains four pages, with each page showing a different catchment area. The title changes on each page to reflect the catchment area being shown.
In this tutorial, you created four potential catchment areas using different methods: contiguous counties, buffers, driving distances, and aggregated patient data. You compared the demographic and health-care information of each catchment area using infographics and created a map series to compare the extent of each catchment area on the map.
By combining the map series with the infographics, you can effectively demonstrate the options for delineating the cancer center catchment areas. The final cancer center catchment area will define accountability metrics for the organization. For instance, the cancer center may be expected to decrease the prevalence of cancer in the population for the selected area over time. These accountability metrics may be tied to funding for the cancer center, meaning choosing the most appropriate catchment area is essential.
You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.