Geography & Public Health

Catalog description

Geography can have a profound effect on health. Through this class, students will gain conceptual and technical understandings of: (1) how geography and health are related; and (2) how the public health toolbox, including geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial epidemiology, can be used to understand the places people live, work, and play and how these places either add to or detract from health. This class combines GIS laboratories and select lectures demonstrating how geographic methods can be used to address public health issues, hands-on computer and small group activities, and in-class training in ArcGIS software. Students will learn through an overt multidisciplinary approach that connects public health, geography, epidemiology, planning, medicine, and the social sciences.