GIS in Epidemiology

This post is the introduction to an article on the use of GIS and location information in Epidemiology, with case studies to illustrate its strengths and weaknessess, its opportunities and downfalls. Please find a link to the full article here.

In 1854 many people died of a severe cholera epidemic that hit London. The cause of this epidemic was unknown and therefore Dr Snow had the clever idea to map cholera cases to see if there was a spatial pattern to be distinguished. It appeared that all cases were related to an infected water pump in Broadstreet, which quickly could be marked with a “Poisonous” sign. With this research Dr Snow got the credits of the first practitioner of health geography. Since that time geography is slowly being introduced within the science of epidemiology.

Epidemiology is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of individuals and populations. Spatial epidemiology, also called health geography, considers the spatial and temporal characteristics of epidemiology.

GIS is nowadays an important tool in quantitative geographic research and in that way used in epidemiology. The mapping of malaria cases in combination with social and physical environmental factors to investigate its potential causes, is a good example. Other examples of the use of GIS in epidemiology are the mapping of HIV patients for the planning of health services and the mapping of the prevalence of the flu in order to do predictions about the spread of this disease.

However, as with the many new technological introductions in science it is very well possible that concepts and analyzing techniques of GIS within epidemiology may lead to overestimation or underestimation of the technique.

In this article the use of GIS within epidemiology will be investigated by means of a SWOT analysis. A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of an objective requiring a decision. The required first step in SWOT analysis is the definition of a question or objective. In this case the question is: Is GIS a useful tool within epidemiology?

Please find here the full article

by Rosan van Wilgenburg, SPINlab, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam