Session: Epidemiologic Applications of Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

3029.0: Monday, November 8, 2004: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM

Oral

Epidemiologic Applications of Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

This session presents examples of the use of GIS in epidemiology. The first presentation will encourage participants to rethink the science and practice of epidemiology in geographic terms. Examples of specific GIS applications will then be presented, including a tool for mapping agroenvironmental contamination of urban and rural water sources, use of GIS in community needs assessment administration, an analysis of urban development and vector-borne disease occurrence, tracking emerging human pathogen vectors across varied habitats, and estimating environmental exposure in a population based study.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) in this session will be able to: 1. Recognize the value of GIS-based agro environmental hygienic pressure indicators for managing the human exposure to waterborne zoonotic enteropathogens. 2. Identify the main theories of disease causation in epidemiology (pragmatism, epidemiologic transition, and political economy of health). 3. Understand the utility of incorporating disease prevalence, mortality, socio-economic, and demographic data in the analysis of community health conditions. 4. Describe quantitative techniques to measure changes in land over time, and correlate these to changes in disease. 5. Identify how a GIS can facilitate epidemiologic investigations of zoonoses and vector-borne diseases. 6. Understand how GIS can be used to estimate exposure to potential teratogens in case-controls studies.

8:30 AM

Development of GIS-based Agroenvironmental Hygienic Pressure Indicators for the management of human exposure to waterborne zoonotic enteropathogens
André Ravel, Michel Bigras-Poulin, Pascal Michel, Denise Bélanger

8:42 AM

Epidemiology, geography and domination: A geographical analysis of the science of epidemiology