Geographic Information Systems in Health and Human Services

Abstract

The chapter begins with a general overview of how GIS has evolved in the health and human services over the last several decades and provides readers with important definitions and descriptions (Sects. 29.1 and 29.2). Sections 29.3 and 29.4 uncover how GIS became an important tool for epidemiologists in the work of tracking infectious diseases and perfecting the study of population health. Readers will also learn that GIS adoption by hospital marketers and planners in the United States accelerated rapidly after 1970, when US Census data became relatively freely available in digital form. The importance of the legendary work of the Dartmouth Health Care Atlas Project and its founder Jack Wennberg is also introduced. In areas where high GIS adoption rates occurred, such as in public health, we feature key applications such as immunization management, disease tracking, outbreak analysis, disease surveillance, syndromic surveillance, emergency preparedness and response, community health assessment, environmental health, chronic disease prevention, and animal and veterinary health. Section 29.5 describes how GIS education has expanded across the academic fields of public health, healthcare administration, and social services. It is pointed out that the material presented in this chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive examination of the history of GIS but, rather, a brief introduction and overview that will generate further interest and self-discovery. Section 29.6.6 considers the role of GIS in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.