Drs. Andy Long, Mark Wilson, Geoff Jacquez, and Leah Estberg
Spatial Epidemiology is an experimental course which arose out of a grant from the National Cancer Institute. The objectives of this grant included the preparation and evaluation of educational modules for teaching spatial analytic theory and methods applied to human health data. While the title suggests only spatial problems, we also treated temporal problems (e.g. surveillance).
Our course, a cooperative effort between the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor, Michigan software company BioMedware, reached 12 graduate students with backgrounds in epidemiology and public health for advanced training in spatial epidemiology. The course theme is the inference of disease processes from spatial disease pattern.
The course was designed with a strong web component, with all materials available from our website[2]. This means that all those with web access can avail themselves of the materials we have created. The modules can be downloaded to a local site or used from our site to present ideas and techniques in spatial analysis of disease patterns. Each module is accompanied by a lab, designed to allow the student to practice the concepts taught in the lecture portion of the module.