Geospatial Applications in Disease Surveillance: Solutions for the Future

Abstract

Given the current attention on national health care reform and the electronic exchange of health information, this article highlights the major developments in disease surveillance and identifies a number of public health opportunities for geospatial thought leaders to undertake. Issues surrounding spatial data quality and resolution, the legal and ethical issues of volunteered geographical health information, and the technical demands of formulating a synthetic and integrative disease surveillance system represent the types of research questions that only geographers can address successfully.