Geomed ’97

A key event in the development of modem epidemiology was the discovery by the English physician, John Snow, that cholera is transmitted by contaminated water. During the cholera epidemic in London in 1854, Snow mapped the locations of cholera deaths, observed a cluster of victims in a particular neighbourhood and found that most of these cases had drunk water from a communal water pump. The handle of the pump was removed at Snow's insistence, and the epidemic ended within a few days. Since these early days, the science of epidemiology has grown into a major discipline, with many successes to its credit. Many of the diseases which wreaked havoc in the last century have been brought under control, and in the case of smallpox, eliminated, through improvements in hygiene and the use of preventive and control measures such as mass vaccination. Nevertheless, in recent years, new problems have emerged, and old diseases have re-emerged. Many foodborne and waterborne disease outbreaks go unrecognized or are detected too late for effective control measures to be implemented. New infections, such as HIV, present new threats. Antimicrobial drug resistance, particularly the increase in drug resistant TB, also poses new challenges.

Geographical Epidemiology.- Detecting Space-Time Patterns in Geocoded Disease Data.- A Spatiotemporal Model: An Application to the AIDS Epidemic in Sao Paulo, Brazil.- A GIS Approach to Mapping AIDS in the United Kingdom: Standardisation of a Heterogeneous Dataset.- Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis of Motor Neurone Disease in North West England: Beyond the Address at Diagnosis.- The Use of Density Estimation Techniques in Mapping the Distribution of Hepatitis A.- The Use of Different Aggregation Levels in Visualisation and Spatial Analysis of Epidemiological Data.- Statistical Methods.- The Detection of Outbreaks of Infectious Disease.- Representing Aggregation and Scale Effects in HIV/AIDS Epidemic Modelling Systems.- A New Approach to Space-Time Modelling of Infectious Disease Behaviour.- Spatial Modelling of Cluster Object And Non-Specific Random Effects, With Application in Spatial Epidemiology.- Systems.- Information Systems for Surveillance of Communicable Diseases.- The European Influenza Surveillance Scheme First Experiences with an Internet Application.- Spatial Data Analysis Support for Cancer Epidemiology in CARESS.- Monitoring the Participation of Sentinel General Practitioner with the Health Care Workstation SITIE.- A Strategy for Geomedical Surveillance Using the Hawkeye Knowledge Discovery System.- An Early Warning System for Detection and Prediction of Outbreaks of Epidemics.- Visual Analysis as an Efficient Tool for the Exploration of Human Health Data.- Content Analysis and Visualization of Epidemological Documents on the Internet.- An Artificial Neural Network Model for the Spread of Communicable Diseases.- Identifying Clusters in Spatial Area Data.