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Geographical Representations of Patients and Their Health Conditions

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Health, Science, and Place

Part of the book series: Geotechnologies and the Environment ((GEOTECH,volume 12))

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Abstract

This chapter briefly reviews the well-established paradigms in patient representations of health. Over the last 50 years, the view of the patient has evolved from a person affected by an infectious disease to a person who is constantly changing and adapting to changes in a social and natural environment of hosts, agents, and reservoirs. Extensive research has demonstrated that the quality of neighborhoods (i.e., their environmental and social contexts) matters to human health. The chapter moves on to examine how viewing a patient through the lens of a landscape, as an organizing principle, can improve patient care and delivery. For instance, when a patient’s medical history is combined with his or her place history in an electronic medical record (EMR), what additional insights can a physician gain to improve the quality and timeliness of a clinical diagnosis? Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of how combining qualitative and quantitative GIS methodologies can uncover the health conditions of minority populations more readily, such that life-saving treatments can commence before problematic symptoms appear.

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  1. TerraFirm International Corp., Inc., Wayne, PA, USA

    Amy J. Blatt

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Blatt, A.J. (2015). Geographical Representations of Patients and Their Health Conditions. In: Health, Science, and Place. Geotechnologies and the Environment, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12003-4_4

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