Geographic Information Systems and Public Health: Eliminating Perinatal Disparity is designed to introduce a community health group to the potential of using a geographic information system (GIS) to improve birth outcomes. Chapters in this book provide an overview of why geography is important in the investigation of health, the importance of the four main components of a GIS (data input, manipulation, analysis and visualization), how important neighborhood context is when using a GIS, and the general differences found between urban and rural health environments. In addition, the reader is introduced to the importance of GIS and confidentially, how a mobile urban population may impact GIS findings, and why pregnant mothers should catered for when making disaster response plans. Examples are drawn heavily from the Baton Rouge Healthy Start program, with one chapter providing an overview guide as to how GIS can be incorporated in the initial grant writing stage for such a program.

Focussing on proven techniques for most real-world data sets, this book presents an overview of the analysis of health data involving a geographic component, in a way that is accessible to any health scientist or student comfortable with large data sets and basic statistics, but not necessarily with any specialized training in geographic information systems (GIS). Providing clear, straightforward explanations with worldwide examples and solutions, the book describes applications of GIS in disaster response.

"GIS, Human Geography, and Disasters" is about people and places impacted by disasters. As geographers we emphasize the spatial, using maps to more fully understand the social processes at work. Topics covered include, "Social" GIS and disasters, spatial comparisons between disasters, spatial patterns in social and health vulnerability, post-disaster health, and neighborhood scale recovery. The book draws heavily from our ongoing experiences with Hurricane Katrina. However, we have written this book in such a way that instructors need not have personal experience with these events; nor is it vital that an instructor has experience with different geospatial technologies. The exercises included in this book can be used by students with GIS skills, but anyone with access to Google Earth and Google Street View can also benefit. We believe it is important to stress the human and the spatial, not just data and techniques. From the student's perspective, this is not a text full of dates or numbers to memorize. We want you to understand the social processes at work-linked by their geography. Andrew Curtis is in the Department of Geography at the University of Southern California. Prior to this he was Director of the "World Health Organization's Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health" at Louisiana State University. His research interests are centered around the geography of health, with a particular emphasis on spatial analysis and geospatial technology. During Hurricane Katrina he helped with geospatial support for search and rescue operations in the Louisiana Emergency Operation Center. He continues to work on various Katrina recovery projects, including developing new geospatial approaches that can empower the abandoned communities of New Orleans in the fight to reestablish their neighborhoods. Jacqueline W. Mills is in the Department of Geography at the California State University at Long Beach. Her research interests are focused around Geographic Information Science (GISc) approaches to the study of natural disasters, particularly how places recover from these events and how people modify their environment to become disaster-resilient. Specific interests within this larger agenda include land use, health, policy, community participation through GISc, and geospatial risk communication. She continues to work in post-Katrina New Orleans, as well as in areas impacted by the 2007 Southern California wildfires. In 2007, a team including Curtis and Mills were awarded the Meredith F. Burrill Award by the Association of American Geographers (AAG) for the LSU GIS Clearinghouse Cooperative an important spatial data clearinghouse for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.

Anecdotal accounts and media stories about poor birth outcomes following a major disaster have as yet not been verified in an academic context, especially for the United States. If this relationship is true, the implications are that a population already disproportionately affected by a disaster might continue to suffer for literally years to come. The potential for this disproportionate disaster legacy is no better illustrated than in the landscapes of post Hurricane Katrina and Rita in Louisiana. In order to gain insight into whether such a problem may exist for Louisiana, and by extension any other postdisaster environment, this book goes back to analyze the pregnancy surfaces for areas impacted by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. This book will show that in the Louisiana landscape affected by Hurricane Andrew, proportions of preterm deliveries did rise, and for different time periods after landfall. Why - was it because of post-disaster stress? What are the implications of these findings for recovery operations after Hurricane Katrina? This book will frame results in a more general overview of post-disaster health and general birth risks. The intended audience are students / researchers in public health, disaster science, social vulnerability and medical geography.