Last Day!
EPID 684
Spatial Epidemiology
University of Michigan School of Public Health
Jon Zelner
[email protected]
epibayes.io
What is spatial epidemiology anyway?
My major goal of this term was to finish with a better sense of this than when we started
Also to help/encourage you to integrate these ideas into your own work.
How did we do?
spatial epidemiology in the Midjourney AI image makerAn AI 🤖 Augmented tour of spatial epidemiology
- Presents an interesting qualitative summary of ideas/images out there on the topic.
- Fun (if you like that sort of thing)
- More productive than making random images of dogs doing silly things.
"Dogs arguing at the UN general assembly"Maps are a key entrypoint to spatial analysis, but not the end
spatial epidemiology mapping
Tobler’s “First Law” and other theoretical perspectices help guide us
“Everything is related to everything else. But near things are more related than distant things.” -Waldo Tobler, 1969
John Snow’s hands-on approach was key to his success
“He sits alone in his cluttered flat, frogs croaking 🐸 around him, illuminated only by candlelight. After a few minutes tinkering…he fastens the mouthpiece over his face and releases the gas. Within seconds, his head hits the desk. Then minutes later, he wakes, consults his watch through blurre vision. He reaches for his pen, and starts recording the data.”
Understanding cities as socio-epidemiological systems is key
“The bird’s-eye view of the city, the sense of the urban universe as a system, as a mass phenomenon—this imaginative breakthrough is as crucial to the eventual outcome of the Broad Street epidemic as any other factor.” (1, p.97)
victorian london street sceneScale, scale, scale…and more scale!
multi-scale epidemiological system including individuals, households, cities, states and countries --ar 16:9
Our mental (spatial) models of how these systems work are sticky
mental models, epidemiology, Inspired by Greenhalgh (2)
evidence-based medicineDislodging these requires interrogating the values and biases baked into the ways we measure…everything.
Suggestions for accurately measuring the nature of and impact of structural racism on health outcomes (From Adkins-Jackson et al., 2021 (3))
Our analytic models need to align with our theoretical ones
multilevel spatial statistical model, scientific drawing, colorFor me, applied spatial epidemiology is about mess management
“What we do experience are large and complex sets of interacting problems, dynamic systems of problems… [W]e refer to these as messes. Our focus is on the management of messes rather than the solution of problems.”
From Ackoff 1981, “The Art and Science of Mess Management”
disease detectiveThe future of spatial epidemiology needs to be dominated by better ideas and not just new technologies
spatial epidemiology in the year 2100
spatial epidemiology in the year 2500This is where I need your help
Spatial epidemiology sometimes comes across as very technical and inaccessible.
One goal with this course was to debunk that a bit while also introducing you to some of the tools.
I recently wrote a blog post about this for people who want to try their hand at spatial analysis but are intimidated for one reason or another.
But: The piece is missing a final diagram that is the counterpoint to this one showing what spatial epid. actually is 👉
Asking you to help me build a more accurate diagram that reflects your experiences and the ideas in the piece.
