Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Public Health

Catalog description

This course is designed to provide an overview of the role and applications of GIS within the public health sector. GIS or Geographic Information Systems may be implemented using a variety of software to integrate, analyze and visualize geographic data. The class will familiarize students with ESRI’s software ArcGIS and its (or that of similar software) increasing applications in public health. This class will teach some of the basic tools of GIS, provide public health case examples with data for practice in class labs, and review the role of GIS in a variety of public health contexts. The class will learn how GIS can be used to map and analyze distributions of public health risk factors and health outcomes to address health problems.