Spatial Epidemiology

Spatial epidemiologists integrate methods from geography, statistics, and cartography to investigate patterns of phenomena such as disease across space and through time. Although spatial epidemiology has a long history, its application has increased substantially in the past 20 years, particularly in public health and environmental science. Spatial epidemiological methods range from mapping disease rates, to geographical correlation studies and methods that acknowledge the importance of spatial dependence such as spatial clustering techniques. The recent growth in “big data” and increasing availability of spatially referenced health data will provide many opportunities for the development of spatial epidemiology.