Medical Geography, First Edition - Hardcover

Meade, Melinda; Emch, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0898627818 ISBN 13: 9780898627817

Publisher: Guilford Press, 1988

Synopsis

This essential text surveys the perspectives, methodologies, and theories that geographers use to address the subject of human health and disease. Wide ranging and international in scope, the volume synthesizes knowledge from across the social, physical, and biological sciences. Coverage includes the cultural ecology of disease; landscape epidemiology; developmental change and human health; biometeorology; disease ecology and spatial analysis in developed countries; spatial interaction in disease diffusion; health care resources, delivery systems, and planning; and research methodologies and data-analytic techniques. Throughout, clearly presented vignettes examine special issues and demonstrate the use of advanced statistical tools. The text is richly illustrated with tables, figures, and maps, including a four-page color insert.

About this title

Review

"This is an improved second edition of a text that has become required reading in most upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses on medical geography. Coverage of various subdisciplines has been enhanced with topical examples and discussions of the new analytical techniques that have come to the fore in the last decade, such as the impact of GIS. The reader is shown the interaction between various geographic systems--including physical, cultural, and political surfaces--and different disease surfaces, via a series of case studies. The sections on spatial analysis and visualization are particularly interesting, as these are at the root of the current research dialogue between medical geography and public health. This text serves as an excellent teaching tool for a first class on medical geography and as a general resource for anyone interested in these issues."--Andrew Curtis, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University "In the best tradition of geography, this text is truly an interdisciplinary endeavor. It draws effectively on many different bodies of literature to construct a more holistic understanding of the geography of human health. True to the strengths and internationally recognized expertise of the authors, the book admirably spans the twin traditions of disease ecology and the geography of health services research. It also reaches out to include such new issues and areas of debate as pollution, global warming, poverty, and other late-modern determinants of health. Many helpful illustrations and case study vignettes enhance the text's prospects as an educational tool, and the inclusion of several 'methodological' chapters is also laudable. Each of these chapters will serve as an excellent introduction and springboard for discussion as part of a senior undergraduate or graduate-level course in medical geography. The volume will also be of interest to non-geographers who seek a deeper understanding of the complex social ""Medical Geography" was a landmark work by Meade, Florin, and Gesler when it was first published in 1988, and its updating by Meade and Earickson is both timely and essential. This edition retains the integrity of the original volume while injecting new and updated material. Two new chapters are included on research methodology and data analysis, including epidemiologic methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A medical geography text that does not address such issues today would be scorned as superficial by epidemiologists. Conversely, almost all epidemiology texts are considered insufficient by medical geographers as they lack a spatial perspective and discussion about the ecology of disease. This text is important in that it makes a step towards bridging the gap between the disciplines and provides a solid text for advancing the field. Designed as an integrated text for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students with a geography background, the volume utilizes a holistic perspective and international examples....Meade and Earickson have provided the discipline with a solid and updated text that will serve a one semester course in medical geography well. Instructors will find this book easy to use for developing a new course in medical geography as the topics flow in a logical manner. Researchers without a special perspective will find it a useful first exposure to the spatial analysis of health-related data. Those who are already trained in the field will want to have the text on their shelves as a proud trophy that medical geography lives."--"Social Science & Medicine" "The book thoroughly introduces its reader to the field....Major strengths of the book areits careful documentation of the authors' sources and its helpful lists of further readings....This is a book with important messages for many audiences: medical epidemiologists, medical sociologists, medical economists, and any politician interested in helping to solve--or better, prevent--the problems associated with disease."--"Science Books and Films"

About the Author

Melinda S. Meade is a professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology, a member of the ecology curriculum, and a fellow of the Carolina Population Center. Robert J. Earickson, a medical geographer, is an emeritus professor of geography at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Edition details

• Publisher: Guilford Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0898627818
• ISBN 13: 9780898627817
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 340