GIS in health geography

This lecture follows up from the health geography lecture from last week. The goal of this lecture is to consider all of the nuances related to using GIS and health geography, and to provide examples of GIS and health geography.

Spatial epidemiology is arguably the biggest application/subfield of health geography. It seeks to understand and describe the spatial variation of diseases. It draws largely upon ego-referenced health and population data kept by governments – e.g. recorded information about an individual’s visit to the doctor. Spatial epidemiology is largely focused on the individual level and small areas; otherwise it is impossible to see how diseases originate, spread, and so on.

Some Issues

Aligning different spatial units is difficult for GIS and health geography -e.g. different sizes/boundaries for various types of administrative districts. Data on population movement is also difficult to find – e.g. people migrating over long time periods, as well as daily movements.

Environmental hazards are a big component of GIS in health geography, because they can be mapped well.