This ground-breaking title is the first comprehensive introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) designed specifically for clinicians, physician-scientists, medical students, residents, fellows, and healthcare leaders.
Medicine has long approached disease through biology-genetics, physiology, laboratory testing, imaging, and pathology. Yet every patient also lives within an environment that profoundly shapes health. Neighborhood conditions, air quality, transportation access, social circumstances, and the places where people work, learn, and age all influence health in ways that often remain invisible during clinical encounters and within the electronic health record.
Geographic Information Systems provide clinicians with a powerful framework for integrating clinical information with the geographic, environmental, social, and built contexts in which health and disease develop. More than a mapping tool, GIS enables clinicians and researchers to uncover hidden patterns, identify environmental influences on disease, and better understand why patients with similar diagnoses often experience different outcomes. Central to this approach is the concept of
geomarkers
-place-based indicators that complement traditional biomarkers by capturing the environmental and community characteristics that influence health. By connecting clinical medicine with spatial science, GIS creates new opportunities to improve patient care, advance clinical research, and strengthen health system decision-making.
Written by a physician and a spatial epidemiologist whose long-standing collaboration bridges these disciplines, this book addresses the conceptual foundation for thinking spatially about patient care. Through clinical examples, practical guidance, and real-world experience, the authors demonstrate how geographic context can strengthen clinical reasoning while addressing the scientific, ethical, legal, and interpretive challenges of working with patient location data.
As precision medicine, artificial intelligence, and data-driven healthcare continue to evolve, understanding where patients live may become as important as understanding their laboratory values, imaging studies, and medical histories.
Geographic Information Systems in Clinical Medicine: Understanding Place, Context, and Meaning in Patient Health
offers a timely and accessible guide to integrating the science of place into clinical practice, enabling healthcare professionals to deliver more informed, equitable, and personalized patient care.
