GIS Analysis of Health Disparities

Dr. Charles Croner is a Geographer and Survey Statistician in the Office of Research and Methodology, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He has been a tireless advocate for the field of geography and the use of GIS in public health for nearly 35 years of government service at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). He served as the first-ever HHS representative to the nation's Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), an entity responsible for the design of the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). He created CDC's Public Health GIS USers Group and is the founding editor of the widely-read bimonthly CDC report Public Health GIS News and Information. Dr. Nancy Krieger is Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health, Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health. Her work focuses on social inequalities in health. She is a social epidemiologist, with a background in biochemistry, philosophy of science, history of public health, and involvement as an activist in issues involving social justice, science, and health. Her work involves: (a) etiologic studies of social inequalities in health, (b) methods for improving monitoring of social inequalities in health, and (c) development of theoretical frameworks to guide work on understanding and addressing social determinants of health. In her current epidemiologic research, she is investigating Area-Based Socioeconomic Measures for Health Data and heads Harvard's Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project. This epidemiologic investigation has demonstrated the utility of using US census tract poverty data for monitoring socioeconomic inequalities in health. Dr. Gerard Rushton is Professor of Geography, Department of Geography at the University of Iowa. His research interest include spatial decision support systems (SDSS) and is especially interested in problems of developing and incorporating insights from location theory into these systems. The domain of his SDSS interests includes the development of human service systems in both western and developing countries, and in medical, economic and social geography.

Introduction.- Part 1: Concepts and Issues.- Health Disparity.- Census and Other Small Area Geography.- Area-based Socio-Economic Determinants and Measures.- Geographic Information Systems.- Part 2: U.S. Studies and Applications.- Part 3: Other Country Examples.- Part 4: Conclusion.- Index