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Pre-Conference
Workshops
Two GIS in Public Health Workshops developed by
the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA)
were held on the day before the conference began (Monday, August
17, 1998). These two all-day sessions provided an introduction to
the use of GIS in the health sciences, and an opportunity to learn
more about using spatial techniques to analyze health data.
Click
here for the complete pre-conference website concerning the
Public Health Workshops.
Workshop 1: "Introduction
to GIS for Public Health"
This workshop was designed to introduce participants
to geographic information systems, the sources of data available
for use in GIS, and GIS techniques that can be used to detect and
solve public health problems. It assumed no prior knowledge of GIS.
The first morning session provided a general introduction to GIS
and related technologies, including GPS. It covered basic operations,
types of software, types of data, and issues of quality and scale.
The following session took participants through each of the major
data sources relevant to public health. The first afternoon session
introduced several case studies to illustrate the value of GIS in
real public health settings. Finally, two late afternoon sessions
gave participants a choice between applications in epidemiology,
and applications in environmental health.
Workshop 2: "Spatial
Statistics for Public Health Data"
This workshop was intended for students who already
have some familiarity with GIS, and interested in learning more
about techniques relevant to public health applications. Itbegan
with an update on data, with emphasis on new and emerging sources.
The second morning session reviewed the use of GIS to estimate environmental
exposure, with associated case studies. In the afternoon participantswere
introduced to advanced techniques available via GIS, including methods
of spatial statistics, exploratory spatial data analysis, and space-time
cluster detection. Participants left with a state-of-the-art presentation
of GIS capabilities in public health.
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