DIMACS Workshop on Spatial Epidemiology and Geographical Information Systems

Dates of Workshop: TBA (Tentatively 2005-2006)
DIMACS Center, CoRE Building, Rutgers University

Organizers:
Daniel Wartenberg, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School , dew@eohsi.rutgers.edu
Presented under the auspices of the Special Focus on Computational and Mathematical Epidemiology.

Traditional approaches to spatial epidemiology have focused on the identification and description of geographic patterns of disease occurrence. Geographic information systems (GIS) offer researchers new opportunities for data storage, display and analysis using geographical functions which may be useful for the etiologic investigation of these spatial disease patterns. While some innovative work has been conducted using a GIS, most GIS applications in this field focus mainly on simple mapping and description. In this workshop, we seek to summarize previous work and develop additional approaches to GIS-based approaches to epidemiology that enable researchers to address questions that are not easily studied with the use of a GIS. For example, for vector borne diseases, research using remote sensing data input into a GIS has enabled researchers to identify high-risk habitat and predict disease outbreaks such as Lyme disease, malaria, and schistosomiasis. Studies of non-point source pollution coupled with models of water distribution systems have been conducted to assess possible adverse health impacts and models of the distribution of lead sources have been used to identify regions at high risk for childhood lead poisoning. Studies of the association between a rare disease (e.g., childhood leukemia) and a second rare disease (e.g., residential exposure to high levels of magnetic fields) that previously were intractable can be addressed by defining geographically a set of exposured subjects nested within a more diffuse cohort. By bringing together mathematicians, statisticians, geographers, and epidemiologists, we will try to identify new approaches to identify etiologies and public health management strategies.
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Document last modified on February 15, 2002.