About the Book
Presenting current research on spatial epidemiology, this book covers topics such as exposure, chronic disease, infectious disease, accessibility to health care settings and new methods in Geographical Information Science and Systems. For epidemiologists, and for the management and administration of health care settings, it is critical to understand the spatial dynamics of disease. For instance, it is crucial that hospital administrators develop an understanding of the flow of patients over time, especially during an outbreak of a particular disease, so they can plan for appropriate levels of staffing and to carry out adaptive prevention measures. Furthermore, understanding where and why a disease occurs at a certain geographic location is vital for decision makers to formulate policy to increase the accessibility to health services (either by prevention, or adding new facilities). Spatial epidemiology relies increasingly on new methodologies, such as clustering algorithms, visualization and space-time modelling, the domain of Geographic Information Science. Implementation of those techniques appears at an increasing pace in commercial Geographic Information Systems, alongside more traditional techniques that are already part of such systems. This book provides the latest methods in GI Science and their use in health related problems.
Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: spatial analysis and health, Eric Delmelle and Pavlos S. Kanaroglou. Section 1 Methods: Effective use of GIS for spatial epidemiology, Linda Beale; An assessment of online geocoding services for health research in a mid-sized Canadian city, Patrick DeLuca and Pavlos S. Kanaroglou; Clustering and co-occurrence of cancer types: a comparison of techniques with an application to pediatric cancer in Murcia, Spain, Antonio Paez, Fernando A. Lopez-Hernandez, Juan A. Ortega-Garcia and Manuel Ruiz. Section 2 Infectious Disease: Spatio-temporal characteristics of the medieval Black Death, Brian H. Bossak and Mark R. Welford; Space-time visualization of dengue fever outbreaks, Eric Delmelle, Meijuan Jia, Coline Dony, Irene Casas and Wenwu Tang; Disease at the molecular scale: methods for exploring spatial patterns of pathogen genetics, Margaret Carrel. Section 3 Chronic Disease: Modeling spatial variation in disease risk in epidemiologic studies, David C. Wheeler and Umaporn Siangphoe; The spatial epidemiology of mental well-being in Dhaka's slums, Oliver Gruebner, Mobarak Hossain Khan, Sven Lautenbach, Daniel Muller, Alexander Kramer, Tobia Lakes, Patrick Hostert and Sandro Galea; Space-time analysis of late-stage breast cancer incidence in Michigan, Pierre Goovaerts and Maxime Goovaerts. Section 4 Exposure: A method for reducing classical error in long-term average air pollution concentrations from incomplete time-series data, Matthew D. Adams and Pavlos S. Kanaroglou; The geographic distribution of metal dust exposure in Syracuse, NY, Daniel A. Griffith; Participatory and ubiquitous sensing for exposure assessment in spatial epidemiology, Michael Jerrett, Colleen E. Reid, Thomas E. McKone and Petros Koutrakis. Section 5 Accessibility and Health: Locational planning of health care facilities, Alan T. Murray and Tony H. Grubesic; Planning towards maximum equality in accessibility of NCI Cancer Centers in the U.S., Fahui Wang, Cong Fu and Xun Shi; Spatial dimensions of access to health care services, Daniel J. Lewis; Nature and death: an individual level analysis of the relationship between biophilic environments and premature mortality in Florida, Christopher J. Coutts and Mark W. Horner. Appendix; Index.
About the Author :
Pavlos Kanaroglou is Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Science at McMaster University, Canada. Eric Delmelle is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at UNC Charlotte, USA. Antonio Páez is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Earth Science at McMaster University, Canada.
Review :
’Kanaroglou, Delmelle and Páez have provided us with a collection of contributions that represent the forefront of the field of spatial analysis and health. The list of contributors is impressive, and they do an excellent job at bringing the reader up-to-date. This is a much-needed book in an important and rapidly growing field.’ Peter Rogerson, University at Buffalo, USA ’This is a truly impressive volume that covers a wide range of topics in medical geography and spatial epidemiology. The chapters provide lucid discussion on important conceptual and methodological issues pertinent to the study of health and disease. This is an excellent book for students and researchers to learn about the latest spatial modeling and analytical methods for examining the space-time patterns of various health-related problems (e.g., space-time visualization techniques, exposure analysis, spatial optimization models, disease clustering, and accessibility analysis).’ Mei-Po Kwan, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA
