Understanding disease transmission dynamics requires grappling with the inherently spatial and temporal nature of the process. A workshop designed to engage researchers from the GIScience (geographic information science) and geography communities with disease ecology research will be held in conjunction with the GIScience 2012 conference on 18 September 2012. The outcome of the workshop will be greater interactions between these research communities. Infectious diseases affect human health, food security, and ecosystem structure. This workshop will improve the quality of research in this area.
The goal of the workshop was to engage researchers from the GIScience and geography communities with research interests that can be related to the NSF EEID (Evolution and Ecology of Infectious Diseases) program. GIScience (geographic information science) is broad field of study that encompasses disciplines where geographic information is used in models for social and environmental phenomena. It is our understanding that the majority of the researchers in GIScience and geography have not yet been involved in much of the EEID work, but their expertise will be valuable to make significant contributions. Through an informal survey among a number of active researchers in the areas of GIScience and medical geography, we came to believe that many in these communities are still unaware of the EEID program. Our preliminary survey also indicated a strong interest in these communities to attend a workshop that would introduce the EEID program and provide opportunity to learn about current EEID projects. Two groups of attendees were invited to the one-day workshop on September 18, 2012. First, we invited seven researchers who are well known in the field of EEID to give presentations about their cutting-edge research. Second, we invited 11 researchers to participate the workshop. These 11 participants were selected from 20 applicants who responded to our call for participation circulated in June 2012. During the workshop, seven breakout sessions were organized so that the attendees could discuss important issues regarding the roles and potential contributions of GIScience researchers to EEID. Specifically, the attendees discussed the significance of GIScience in topics such as modeling environmental processes, linking networks, environment and diseases, mapping for EEID, new data sources and big data, mobility modeling, and challenges for outreach. The abstracts and presentations were archived at http://decml.osu.edu/giscience-workshop.
