Infectious and Communicable Disease: The View from Health Geography

Are you keen to understand how complex issues that span multiple disciplines can be tackled in research? Then join this series, which will illustrate the value of geography as a connecting science, ideal for dealing with complex issues. A series of four sessions delivered across 2021 aims to provide a wide-ranging view of some contemporary issues in healthcare form a health geography perspective. In this series Dr. Hamish Robertson will range across disciplines to discuss the role of the humanities, social sciences and health disciplines in addressing emerging complexities and the value in making cross-disciplinary connections.

While the examples given will relate to health, the workshops will be valuable for researchers in many fields, studying many topics, providing opportunities to learn about working with different kinds of data, data representation / visualisation, and different approaches to analysis.

The key topics for discussion will include: (1) a general introduction to health geography and its connections to disciplines such as classical studies, religious studies, history, public health and the social sciences; (2) communicable and infectious diseases from a health geography perspective including the importance of quantitative and qualitative methods for effective management of these problems; (3) non-communicable diseases including trends such as population ageing and disability; (4) environmental racism and classism as a specific focus because social inequalities are health inequalities.

No experience in any branch of academic geography is expected for participation in this series. The mindset we ask for is an openness to different disciplines, perspectives and making connections across fields of inquiry, methodologies and events.

This is the registration page for the 2nd session in the series:

Infectious and Communicable Disease: The View from Health Geography

Covid-19 is but the most recent in the long history of infectious and communicable diseases, and its continuing impact on individuals, populations, cities and societies. Environmental change, including forest clearance along with urban and agricultural intensification, are seen as major factors in zoonotic diseases crossing from animal to human populations. Once transmission occurs, social and political factors come into play and some responses have a long socio-political history (e.g. the racialisation of disease). This means that health and illness are intrinsically connected to the social world and, therefore, both accessible and amenable to analysis by the social sciences. And the social world is fundamentally geographic in nature – social inequalities are almost always spatial inequalities. In this session we will explore why health geography is helpful in analysing these issues and how the ideas and methods available in geography can support improved outcomes and reduced inequalities. We will also discuss issues such as emerging technologies and their implications for disease surveillance and community stigmatisation.

Learning Outcomes

1. Understand how to connect the natural and constructed environments in useful ways for social science analysis.

2. Learn how to unpack social and health inequalities via a geographic perspective.

3. Broaden your understanding of the spatial sciences and their utility for emerging health concerns.

Please note that this session will be recorded