Perceived access to health infrastructure in Leistershire, UK, was explored by  Brudson, Comber & Radburn (2011). The results of a postal attitude survey that was conducted in Leistershire in 2008 collected information on perceived access to general practitioners and hospitals connected to the postcode of the respondents. This data was used to perform a geographically weighted regression to assess dependence of the perceived access on physical distance, health/ill-health and car ownership of the respondents. They found long term illness, general health and car ownership were significant predictors of perceived accessibility to both GP surgeries and hospitals.

In-class presentations on different health geography papers using GIS analysis included the following interesting topics:

• Epidemiology of infectious diseases such as SARS
• Impact of environmental variables and climate change on the occurrence of diseases such as Lyme disease and Malaria
• Access and travel time to health infrastructure
• Influence of socio-economic status on health
• Mapping of disease occurrence such as cancer or Malaria

I found the paper that Yulin presented particularly interesting, in which the distribution of childhood asthma in St. Louis, Missouri, was linked to socio-economic environmental variables. The topic of environmental injustice is certainly a grave issue in the US, where the health-care system is relatively inaccessible for less fortunate people. For me as an European the insecurity that must be connected to health in the States is unimaginable.

Reference:

Brunsdon C., Comber A.J., & Radburn R. (2011). A spatial analysis of variations inhealth access: linking geography, socio-economic status and access perceptions. International Journal of Health Geographics, 1, 44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-10-44