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URISA's GIS in Public Health Conference

March 30, 2009 – (Park Ridge, IL) – URISA’s 2009 GIS in Public Health Conference (June 5-8 in Providence, Rhode Island) will offer important topics addressed by leaders in the field. Themed “Putting Health in Place with GIS”, the conference features full-day workshops, sixty-four presentations, exhibits, a poster session and networking events.
The opening keynote address will be delivered by Corrie Brown, DVM, PhD, Coordinator of International Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia and the closing keynote address will be presented by Leslie Lenert, MD, MS, FACMI, Director of the National Center for Public Health Informatics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Four preconference workshops will be presented:

1. Space-Time Analysis of Health Data
Instructed by: Marilyn O. Ruiz, University of Illinois, Urbana , IL and Geoffrey M. Jacquez, MS, PhD, President, BioMedware and Adjunct Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, The University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI

2. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for Field Data Collection to Support Field Epidemiology, Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Health, and Other Public Health Programs
Instructed by: Carl Kinkade, Enterprise Geodatabase Manager, Centers for Disease Control - National Center for Public Health Informatics, Atlanta, GA


3. Protecting Privacy and Confidentiality of Geographic Data in Health Research
Instructors: Christopher Cassa, Ph.D., M.Eng., Research Fellow, Harvard Medical School, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Children’s Hospital Informatics Program; Ellen K. Cromley, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, The Institute for Community Research; Andrew J. Curtis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Southern California; Sam LeFevre, M.S., Environmental Epidemiology Program Manager, Utah Department of Health; Sheel Pandya, J.D., M.P.H., Policy Counsel, Health Privacy Project, Center for Democracy & Technology

4. Ecological Niche Modeling for Predicting Disease Distributions: Designing Experiments and Interpreting Results
Instructed by: Dr. Jason K. Blackburn and Mr. Timothy A. Joyner, Spatial Epidemiology and Ecology Research Laboratory, California State University Fullerton

Following are just a few of the sessions that are highlighted in this year’s educational offerings:

Pandemic/Avian Flu
Emergency planners and healthcare providers at all levels should be involved in the preparation for and response to a possible outbreak of a deadly contagion. This session will inform participants of some of the spatial challenges and solutions relevant to pandemic influenza.

Health Disparities and Social Factors in Health
This session addresses concepts and methods for investigating social factors in health and associated health disparities.

Public Health Epidemiology
Epidemiology has long been associated with geospatial and temporal factors. This session will inform participants on several relevant investigations.

Cancer Geographics
GIS has been gaining much greater core importance in cancer epidemiology and related areas. Organizations like North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and the CDC cancer programs, as well as state cancer registries are formally adopting GIS as an important tool. Standards have been developed for capturing cancer patient data so that address geocoding produces a high hit rate enabling spatial epidemiology to more accurate, comprehensive and relevant. Papers in this session provide a look at how widely Cancer GIS is being pursued.

Environmental Public Health Tracking Network and Standards
The Environmental Public Health Tracking Network integrates hazard monitoring, exposure, and health effects surveillance. Papers in this session provide an introduction to the network and to network standards.



Complete conference details are available online: http://www.urisa.org/conferences/health



Contact:

Wendy Nelson
Executive Director - URISA
Tel.: 847-824-6300
E-mail: Email Contact
www.urisa.org