Medical Geography

The leading text in the field, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to geographic approaches to studying disease and promoting health. It presents cutting-edge techniques of spatial and social analysis and explores their relevance for understanding cultural and political ecology, disease systems, and public health issues across the globe. Essential topics include how new diseases emerge and epidemics develop in particular places; the intersecting influences on health of biological processes, culture, environment, and behavior; and the changing landscape of health care planning and service delivery. The text is richly illustrated with tables, figures, and maps, including 16 color plates.

New to This Edition

*Thoroughly updated in response to the challenges of globalization, development, and demographic changes.

*Incorporates the latest data and conceptual frameworks.

*Chapters on neighborhood analysis and the use of GIS in modeling health and disease.

*GIS applications and examples are integrated throughout.

Booknews

This revised and expanded edition surveys the perspectives, methodologies, and theories geographers use to address human health and illness. Providing a broad-based, comprehensive survey of the diversity of medical geography, for upper-division undergraduates and graduates, the volume also serves as a reference for classifications, processes, and systems approached from a holistic and international perspective. In sum, the book provides necessary biology for geographers to understand disease processes and the necessary geographical background for health researchers to understand spatial processes. Topics include the biometeorology of health status, geographies of disease in economically developed areas, health care delivery systems worldwide, and worldwide pollution from noise, radiation, chemicals, and the byproducts of burning. Both authors are medical geographers, Meade at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Earickson at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Melinda S. Meade, a medical geographer, is Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology, a member of the Institute of Environment, and a fellow of the Carolina Population Center. In addition to the first and second editions of Medical Geography, Dr. Meade has published journal articles on the disease ecology of tropical Asia and the United States. She is a member of the Association of American Geographers and other geographic, Asian studies, and population associations.

Michael Emch, a medical geographer, is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Spatial Health Research Group. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Epidemiology and a fellow of the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Emch has published journal articles on disease ecology, primarily of infectious diseases of the tropical world. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers and is also an advisory editor for the international journal Social Science and Medicine.