By Sean Olson, University Relations
Dr. Bunch is the center's director.
UNCG is mapping its way into a hot area of academic study that has implications for the study of world health problems.
The Board of Trustees approved the Center for Geographic Information Science and Health at its meeting this week. The center, which was developed by the Department of Geography, will concentrate on the intersection of two disciplines: public health and geographic information science.
“The intersection of the two is perfect,” said Dr. Rick Bunch, assistant professor of geography and director of the center. “Geographic information science (GIScience) applications used for solving and understanding health-related problems are very powerful. The applications are limited only by one’s creativity.”
Bunch said the center will expand the already existing relationship between geography and health. Recently, the geography department has worked with Public Health Regional Surveillance Teams (PHRST) in North Carolina to train team leaders on how to integrate geographic information systems into field operations, so teams can collect and analyze data in the field. Geography also has a relationship with the Guilford County Department of Public Health. Staff and students from the department have been working to train public health professionals to in Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and geographic techniques.
“This center will concentrate on how GIScience – GIS, cartography, spatial statistics, and remote sensing – comes into play with health-related disciplines and issues, such as epidemiology, obesity and cancer incidence, and mortality rates among other things,” Bunch said. “Those studies go on now, but GIScience can provide a much richer spatial perspective.”
“From the days when John Snow used GIS to identify a contaminated well as the source of a London cholera outbreak, GIS has played an important role in addressing public health problems. A center devoted to health GIS can make a vital contribution to developing a culture of GIS in public health, training the public health workforce, and providing expert support in development of public health GIS applications and research,” said Dr. Mark Smith, epidemiologist with the Guilford County Department of Public Health.
The center will be housed in the geography department, which is located in the Graham Building on Spring Garden Street. In addition to Bunch, the center will also employ two graduate students and a lab manager.
“There is just a huge demand for GIScience and public health applications,” Bunch said. “We want to institutionalize that, to make geographic information science part of the day-to-day work of health professionals.”
For more information on the Department of Geography, visit them on the web at www.uncg.edu/geo/ or call 336-334-5388.
