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Table of Contents | Background
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Spatially Integrated Social Science: Chapter 18
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Spatial
Perspectives in Public Health
Anthony C. Gatrell and
Janette E. Rigby
Abstract
A full understanding of the health of the
population requires perspectives from a wide range of disciplines,
covering the social, environmental and natural sciences. Since
those at risk of disease, or with varying health status, occupy,
and move among, a variety of locations, and since the factors
that shape their health also have particular spatial configurations,
it is unsurprising that a spatial perspective on public health
is essential. Here, we show how such a perspective illuminates
the understanding of three broad disease areas–HIV/AIDS;
breast cancer; and skin disease. We consider a range of spatial
analytic methods that shed light on disease distribution.
The set of spatial analytic methods covered here includes
those for creating maps in non-geographical spaces, as well
as techniques for detecting spatial clustering among area
and point pattern data.
We next ask how a spatial perspective helps understand the
social patterning of health inequalities, considering such
inequalities at both regional and local scales. Here, we suggest
the appropriateness of a GIS perspective, used to shed light
on differential access to health care facilities as well as
proximity to sources of environmental contamination.
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