Spatial statistics and geographical information systems in epidemiology and public health

This chapter surveys the principles behind spatial statistics and geographic information systems (GIS), and their application to epidemiology and public health. Like the other introductory chapters, it is aimed mainly to facilitate understanding in the chapters specific to certain diseases that follow, and to provide a short introduction to the field. A brief overview of spatial statistics and GIS is provided in the introduction. The sections that follow explore the ways in which we can map the distribution of disease, ways in which we can look for spatial patterns in the distribution of disease, and ways in which we can apply spatial statistics and GIS to the problem of identifying the causal factors of observed patterns. In the last section I discuss some of the ways in which these techniques have been applied to assist decision making for disease intervention, and conclude by discussing future developments in the field, and some of the issues surrounding the integration of spatial statistics and GIS.