Yongmei Lu - Böcker

This volume presents a timely collection of research papers on the progress, opportunities, and challenges related to the advancement of geospatial technologies for applications in urban health research and management. The chapter authors cover technologies ranging from traditional GIS and remote sensing technologies, to recently developed tracking/locational technologies and volunteered geographic information (VGI). In four main sections, the book uniquely contributes to the conversation of how geospatial technologies and other GIScience research may be enhanced by addressing the data and challenges presented by urban health issues. The book is intended for those with backgrounds in health and medical geography, social epidemiology, urban planning, health management, and lifestyle research.The book starts with an introduction by the editors, providing an overview of traditional and emerging geospatial technologies and how they each can significantly contribute to urban health studies. Section 1 covers urban health risk and disease, and analyses the spatial and temporal patterns of selected urban health issues. Section 2 addresses urban health service access, and demonstrates how traditional and new geospatial technologies apply to different segments of urban populations facing varied challenges. Section 3 focuses on incorporating geospatial technologies in promoting healthy behaviours and lifestyles in urban settings. Section 4 assesses how geospatial technologies may be incorporated into urban health policies and management practices. Adopting a forward-looking perspective, these papers examine the various health challenges in urban systems, and explore how new and emerging geospatial technologies will need to develop to address these problems.

This volume presents a timely collection of research papers on the progress, opportunities, and challenges related to the advancement of geospatial technologies for applications in urban health research and management.

This book is the second in a series that examines how geographic information te- nologies (GIT) are being implemented to improve our understanding of a variety of hazard and disaster situations. The main types of technologies covered under the umbrella of GIT, as used in this volume, are geographic information systems, remote sensing (not including ground-penetrating or underwater systems), and global po- tioning systems. Our focus is on urban areas, broadly de ned in order to encompass rapidly growing and densely populated areas that may not be considered “urban” in the conventional sense. The material presented here is also unabashedly applied – our goal is to provide GIT tools to those seeking more ef cient ways to respond to, recover from, mitigate, prevent, and/or model hazard and disaster events in urban settings. Therefore, this book was created not only with our colleagues in the academic world in mind, but also for hazards professionals and practitioners. We also believe graduate students will nd the material presented here of interest, as may upper division undergraduate students.