Health geography
Health geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care. Medical geography, a sub-discipline of, or sister field of health geography,[1] focuses on understanding spatial patterns of health and disease in relation to the natural and social environment.[2][3] Conventionally, there are two primary areas of research within medical geography: the first deals with the spatial distribution and determinants of morbidity and mortality, while the second deals with health planning, help-seeking behavior, and the provision of health services.[4]
Overview
Medical geography
The first area of study within medical geography has been described as geographical epidemiology or disease geography and is focused on the spatial patterns and processes of health and disease outcomes.[4] This area of inquiry can be differentiated from the closely related discipline of epidemiology in that it uses concepts and methods from geography, allowing an ecologic perspective on health that considers how interactions between humans and the environment result in observed health outcomes.[5] The second area of study focused on the planning and provision of health services, often with a focus on the spatial organization of health systems and exploration of how this arrangement affects accessibility of care.[6]
Health geography
The study of health geography has been influenced by repositioning medical geography within the field of
This alternative methodological approach means that medical geography is broadened to incorporate philosophies such as
History
Relationships between
Modern medical geography arose in the United States in the 1950s with the pioneering work of Jacques May,
Areas of study
Health geography is considered to be divided into two distinct elements. The first of which is focused on geographies of disease and ill health, involving descriptive research quantifying disease frequencies and distributions, and analytic research concerned with finding what characteristics make an individual or population susceptible to disease. This requires an understanding of epidemiology.[14] The second component of health geography is the geography of health care, primarily facility location, accessibility, and utilization. This requires the use of spatial analysis and often borrows from behavioral economics.[15]
Geographies of disease and ill health
Health geographers are concerned with the prevalence of different diseases along a range of
Geography of health care provision
Although healthcare is a public good, it is not equally available to all
Mobility and Disease Tracking:
With the advent of mobile technology and its spread, it is now possible to track individual mobility. By correlating the movement of individuals through tracking the devices using access towers or other tracking systems, it is now possible to determine and even control disease spread. While privacy laws question the legality of tracking individuals, the commercial mobile service providers are using covert techniques or obtaining government waivers to allow permission to track people.[citation needed]
Methods
Health geographers
Notable health geographers include:
See also
- Cluster (epidemiology)
- Social model of disability
- Spatial epidemiology
- Tobler's first law of geography
- Tobler's second law of geography
References
- ^ Oxford Bibliographies entry of Medical Geography.
- ^ Meade MS, Florin JW, Gesler WM. Medical geography. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 1988.
- ^ Meade, M.S., 2014. Medical geography. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, pp.1375-1381.
- ^ a b Mayer, J.D., 1982. Relations between two traditions of medical geography: health systems planning and geographical epidemiology. Progress in Geography, 6(2), pp.216-230.
- ^ Glass, G. E. 2000. Update: spatial aspects of epidemiology: the interface with medical geography. Epidemiologic Reviews 22 (1): 136-139.
- ^ a b c Meade, M. S. and M. Emch. 2010. Medical Geography. Guilford Press, New York.
- ^ a b Philo, Chris (2009). "Health and Health Care". In Gregory, Derek; Johnston, Ron; Pratt, Geraldine et al. The Dictionary of Human Geography (Fifth Edition). Oxford:Blackwell. pp.325-326
- ^ a b Philo, Chris (2009). "Medical Geography". In Gregory, Derek; Johnston, Ron; Pratt, Geraldine et al. The Dictionary of Human Geography (Fifth Edition). Oxford:Blackwell. pp.451-453
- ^ Welhausen CA. Power and Authority in Disease Maps: Visualizing Medical Cartography Through Yellow Fever Mapping. J Bus Tech Commun. 2015;29: 257–283. doi:10.1177/1050651915573942
- ^ McLeod KS. Our Sense of Snow: The Myth of John Snow in Medical Geography. Soc Sci Med. 2000;50: 923–935.
- ^ Nelson KE, Williams CM, editors. Infectious disease epidemiology: theory and practice. 3rd ed. Burlington, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2014.
- ^ a b Mark S. Monmonier (1976) Jacques M. May, The Professional Geographer, 28:1, 93, DOI: 10.1111/j.0033-0124.1976.00093.x [1]
- ^ May, J. M. 1950. Medical geography: Its methods and objectives. Geographical Review 40 (1): 9-41.
- PMID 20503184.
- .
- medRxiv 10.1101/2021.04.14.21255454v1.
- ^ "The costs of inequality: Money = quality health care = longer life". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2017-02-19.
- ISBN 978-0-323-95389-4, retrieved 2023-03-05
- ^ Sui, D.Z., 2007. Geographic information systems and medical geography: Toward a new synergy. Geography Compass, 1(3), pp.556-582.
External links
- Social and Spatial Inequalities
- GeoHealth Laboratory Archived 2017-12-06 at the Wayback Machine