Foundations of Spatial Analysis in Public Health

The distribution of power and privilege in society directly shapes where we live and what opportunities we have available to us for achieving optimal health and well-being. Describing how sociopolitical forces shape our neighborhoods and communities can help us understand how and why health and disease vary over space and time. In this course, we will use a combination of didactic lecture sessions and interactive tutorial sessions to develop our knowledge and skills as spatial thinkers and understand how geographic information system applications like ArcGIS can be used to collect, analyze, and visualize spatial data to inform, evaluate, and improve public health programs. In small groups, we will work together to conduct spatial analyses using data from programs delivered by the Rhode Island Department of Health to learn and apply best practices for conducting spatial analyses and communicating their results.