Geographic Information Systems and Public Health

Geographic Information Systems and Public Health: Eliminating Perinatal Disparity is designed to introduce a community health group to the potential of using a Geographic Information System to improve birth outcomes. The book is aimed at novice to intermediate level GIS users, though even advanced researchers will gain from the detailed health examples. Chapters in this book provide an overview of why geography is important in the investigation of health, the importance of the four main components of a GIS (data input, manipulation, analysis and visualization), how important neighborhood context is when using a GIS, and the general differences found between urban and rural health environments. In addition, the reader is introduced to the importance of GIS and confidentially, how a mobile urban population may impact GIS findings, and why pregnant mothers should catered for when making disaster response plans. Examples are drawn heavily from the Baton Rouge Healthy Start program, with one chapter providing an overview guide as to how GIS can be incorporated in the initial grant writing stage for such a program.

Andrew Curtis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University. He is also Director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health. This center currently houses several local, national and international projects involving GIS and the understanding of disease systems. Topics range from Anthrax distributions in Kazakhstan, to the cultural surface of Chagas Disease in Mexico. His personal research foci include real-time GIS analysis of emerging infections, the spatial analysis of historic epidemics, and GIS response to Bioterrorism. In addition, he has worked for four years on a project to reduce African American infant mortality in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is the evaluator (and original co-grant writer) of the Baton Rouge Healthy Start project. Michael Leitner, Ph.D is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. He received his undergraduate (1987) and graduate (1990) degrees in geography and cartography at the University of Vienna, Austria followed by his doctoral degree in GIS and Computer Cartography in the Department of Geography at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1997. His research interests fall into the area of Geographic Information Science and Technology (GI S&T) applied to criminology, medical geography, and cartographic visualization. He has taught primarily GI S&T courses including computer cartography, map design, GIS, GPS, aerial photo interpretation and spatial analysis. Dr. Leitner is the current chair of the Cartography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers and a member of the Editorial Board of Cartographic Perspectives and Cartography and Geographic Information Science.