Introduction to Spatial and Temporal Analysis in Health

1. History of spatial analysis: some examples
   1. from other fields or problems (travel, commerce, development planning, etc.)
   2. plant and animal ecology; agriculture
   3. medical geography

2. Examples of health-related problems
   1. characterizing location of health services
   2. describing the path of an epidemic

3. How and why does space matter in epidemiology?
   1. Depends on question: often assumed/implied in analysis (person, place, time)
      1. ignored if looking at entire region
      2. certain variables may serve as proxy for space
   2. heuristic value of seeing where and how changes
   3. analytic value in advancing understanding of mechanism
   4. gaining insight into process from underlying pattern

4. Characteristics of spatial data
   1. nature of 2-d space, projection, etc.
   2. description of space: point, line, polygon
   3. comparisons with other data
      1. experimental vs. observational
      2. level of uncertainty: location, attributes
      3. nature of sample: events, spatial unit
      4. lack of independence

5. Different kinds of spatial patterns and measurements

6. Simple methods that evaluate pattern
   1. mean-variance for point pattern
   2. Nearest neighbor measures

7. Some new technologies relevant to spatial analysis

Page by Andy Long. Comments appreciated.