What is health mapping and GIS?

What is health mapping and GIS?

History and Development of Public Health and GIS Medical or health geography is an area of medical research that uses geographic techniques such as the use of mapping and GIS to study the impact of a person’s surroundings on their health. Scientists have used mapping to study public health since ancient times.

How does the World health Organization use GIS?

WHO has an established history of using GIS and mapping to analyze spatial distribution and risk factor patterns, to identify, prevent and control diseases, and to improve the impact of public health interventions. It also provides core capacity building for governments, WHO country offices and technical departments.

How do epidemiologist use mapping?

Epidemiological studies often involve mapping the diffusion of various diseases over time in a given space, and the analysis of this geospatial diffusion has the potential to lead to greater opportunities for disease control and prevention.

Why do insurance companies use GIS?

By utilizing GIS for insurance companies, real-time data is provided to underwriters faster — improving every aspect of decision making. GIS technology also provides a more exact identification of legitimate versus fraudulent claims — providing accurate data for future statistical analysis.

Where do geographers work?

Human geographers work in the fields of urban and regional planning, transportation, marketing, real estate, tourism, and international business. Physical geographers study patterns of climates, land forms, vegetation, soils, and water.

What is health mapping?

Maps identify public health issues, suggest quantitative associations, evaluate the impact of interventions, and communicate results to the neighborhood residents, public health researchers, and policy makers. The range of applications is as broad as the field of public health itself.

Why is GIS important in epidemiology?

Basic and analytical applications of GIS in epidemiology can help in visualizing and analyzing geographic distribution of diseases through time, thus revealing spatio-temporal trends, patterns, and relationships that would be more difficult or obscure to discover in tabular or other formats.

Which two examples describe possible uses for GIS?

Common uses of GIS include inventory and management of resources, crime mapping, establishing and monitoring routes, managing networks, monitoring and managing vehicles, managing properties, locating and targeting customers, locating properties that match specific criteria and managing agricultural crop data.