This week, we looked into the second research application, health geography. GIS plays a major role in health care. The study of geographical patterns and the spread of diseases is important in controlling them. Health and geography have been used for a long time for disease ecology, health care delivery, and environmental and health assessments. Studies have found that social and economic factors are two of the main contributors to health outcomes. Therefore, improving health outcomes require a focus that does not only look at clinical are and coordination but also the geography.
This week, we focused on medical geography and health geography. Medical geography has been used for a very long time. It is the application of geographical perspectives and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care. This application uses concepts and techniques of other social, physical, and biological sciences to investigate health-related topics. Medical geography looks at the access to, and the location and utilization of health facilities, the use of quantitative techniques for spatial analysis in health care planning, or the socio-political determinants of health and access to health care. Health geography has an alternative social and environmental perspective on health in which geography can play an important part, along with other social sciences. It looks at local variations in health status, health care provision, and principal concerns of medical geography. Health geography has five strands:
- Spatial patterning of disease and health
- Spatial patterning of service provision
- Humanistic approaches to 'medical geography'
- Structuralist / materialist / critical approaches to medical geography
- Cultural approaches to medical geography
Learning Significance