Maps in R using ggplot2 and OSM packages

NHSE R drop in session

Pablo Leon |pablo.leonrodenas@nhs.net

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Intro

These slides were presented in the NHSE-R drop in session on Friday 26th May 2023.

In R we can plot geospatial data using several methods, today I will focus on static maps using ggplot2 and osm packages. Drawing maps usually imply these steps:

Getting shapefiles to draw a map
Obtaining metadata to plot on the map
In R we load the multypoligon objects using geom_sf() and coord_sf()
Then we can take advantage of ggplot2 framework to overlay one map on top of another

An introduction to plotting maps in R using ggplot2 can be found on this online book: https://ggplot2-book.org/maps.html.

1. NHS Health boundaries

The Office for National Statistics provides a free and open access to several geographic products. There is a specific section for Health boundaries on their Open Geography Portal website: https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/.

From Clinical Commissioning Groups section download 2021 Boundaries shapefile zipped file.

2. Unzip CCG boundaries into R

Load unzipped files into R using Open Geography Portal