The next Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN) Seminar Series event will focus on spatial epidemiology and child health.
Jacqueline Curtis, co-director of the GIS | Health & Hazards Lab and associate professor in the Department of Geography at Kent State University, will present “Mapping Neighborhood Environments & Child Health: New Opportunities for Expanding the Evidence Base” Wednesday, Jan. 9, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the BioEnterprise Building.
About the talk
Spatial epidemiology has offered numerous insights into how neighborhood environments influence health outcomes. However, these investigations often have relied on “official” data, such as from the census, police, or hospitals, and on traditional spatial analyses such as mapping “hot spots.” These sources and approaches provide an important, but incomplete, understanding of the multivariate and dynamic relationship between what children experience in their surroundings and their health outcomes. Emergent research into new forms of geospatial data collection and analysis aims to fill this knowledge gap. In her presentation, Curtis will introduce advances through a number of research-practice partnerships, highlighting:- Mapping direct observations of the built and social/behavioral environment;
- Mapping local knowledge of neighborhood conditions; and
- Assessing the validity of mapped hot spots for geographically targeted prevention and intervention resources.
