GIS is useful in the field of health geography in 4 ways:

1. Spatial epidemiology
2. Environmental hazards
3. Modelling Health Services
4. Identifying health inequalities

Spatial epidemiology is concerned with describing and understanding spatial variation in disease risks. It is based on the geographically uneven distribution of population, movement of people, diverse individual characteristics, and community compositions. This concept underlies GIS application in health geography as it explains where health problems are found. Spatial epidemiology is usually presented and examined with disease mapping, cluster detection, spatial exposure assessment, and the assessment of the risk of disease.

With regards to environmental hazards, GIS can identify the causal and mitigating factors through 3 stages of surveillance: (1) hazard surveillance that detect hazardous agents present in the environment, (2) exposure surveillance that identify individuals exposed to agents in time and space, and (3) outcome surveillance that map and analyze spatial patterns of health events.

Modelling health services and identifying health inequalities are equally important in the study of health geography. Models such as the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia are therefore developed for these purposes.