Double celebration for OIPH’s Geography of Health (GOH) study group

Once again, the public health, geography, and GIS communities were looking forward to the third Wednesday of November, for their traditional appointment with “Health GIS: STAR (Spatial Thinking in Applied Research)”, organized, as in every second year, on International GIS day by our own OIPH-supported GOH, Health Geography and GIS research study group.

Many of us think of GIS as the technology that enables us to map “things”, and this 2022 GIS day event showcased a wealth of research and applications, illustrating not only the power of GIS in mapping public heath and epidemiology, but also how much more geographic information science can do to support health research, policy, and management.

As we vividly remember the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone was looking forward to the latest maps and dashboards to understand the extent, spread, and severity of the contagion, public health researchers and practitioners, and the general population, have all grown accustomed to maps as a means of communicating disease and health. The widespread use of maps to communicate the pandemic has only awoken and perhaps sharpened our innate ability to think spatially. Coupled with the power of GIScience, our instinctive spatial thinking is making mapping a new global language, enabling people to communicate across the world, beyond the boundaries of language, culture, or education.

Yet, when we think spatially, mapping is only the beginning. Placing health and disease on the map is the starting point to understand the where of disease. GIScience can help us understand where, why there, and what we can do to improve health right where it is needed. Beyond mapping, the analytical capabilities of GIScience can help public health focus and direct resources where the needs are greater, achieving efficiencies and savings. Furthermore, in helping us understand the why, and why there of health and disease, GIScience and spatial data analysis can help us to reliably predict where disease or contagion may happen next, and to efficiently deploy resources in prevention and mitigation.

Indeed, our keynote speeches took us through the journey of polio eradication in Africa: a long and difficult, yet successful journey, aided by the technology and science of GIS to make the most efficient use of resources that are ever too scarce. This is not a tale of remote and developing countries: our own Canadian heath care is increasingly challenged by growing transmissible and vector-born diseases in our changing climate and environment. Location and place are the new keywords to identify, monitor, prevent and mitigate: truly, it is hard to think of today’s health and health care outside the geographic lens and the map metaphor.

We were also able to accept an exciting variety of lightning talks that took us on a journey through the evolving challenges at the intersection of heath and environment, the lessons we are learning from COVID-19 and how we can apply them to other emerging diseases, to the urban environment, the impact of lifestyle on health, and the relationship of place and mental health. All these tales and testimonies took us to many places, from Alberta and Canada to Africa, Europe, the Middle East, at scales ranging from local to global, through our past and present, with stimulating analyses and ideas to make our world a better place.

You can find the program and abstracts here. 

Held online for the second time since 2020, our health GIS day attracted a record number of 98 registrants, whose participation rotated during the event, as did our Earth, moving into the night hours for participants in the many time zones east of ours.

This was a very special GIS day celebration, as this 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the GOH study group. Founded in 2012, in recognition that geography and GIS research are an integral part of public health research, GOH has traditionally served as a hub, connecting public health research needs with geography and GIS expertise. On this 10th anniversary of GOH, we are proud of our achievement, we are grateful for OIPH’s continued support, and we hope to see more epidemiologists, health researchers and practitioners, geographers, GISsers, and all map lovers get in touch: GOH is the place to share and connect healthy spatial thinking!