Call for Abstracts Announced for 2016 URISA GIS and Health Symposium
Mapping the Way to Healthy Communities
The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), in partnership with the
American Public Health Association (APHA), invites abstract submissions for the 2016 GIS
and Health Symposium. The theme for this year's Symposium is “Mapping the Way to
Healthy Communities”. The event will take place June 1-3, 2016 in Washington, DC.
Abstract submissions are due on March 15, 2016.
The Symposium program will be developed, in large part, from abstracts submitted by the
community through this Call. The Committee welcomes the submission of individual papers,
complete sessions, and panel discussions on a variety of topics. We are specifically
interested in abstracts related to the following topics.
* Connecting health with spatial relationships (and data) - thinking about health in a
more spatial format
* Tools for policy-makers, planners, researchers.
* Role of GIS in communicating health information/issues
* Health impact assessments
* Metrics/measuring health outcomes through GIS
* Creating synergy between the public health realm and urban and regional entities
carrying out planning, research and policy.
* Focused policy session – cross-sector session addressing the Surgeon General’s
National Prevention Strategy “Health in All Policies” approach
* Access to healthcare / health facilities and services
* Agriculture and food systems (access to healthy foods, food safety)
* Active living, recreation, and physical activity from transportation; obesity
strategies and interventions
* Health equity (include income considerations, minority groups, aging, persons with
disabilities, etc.)
* Urban ecology/urban health – natural and human systems (social ecology; humans and
environment)
* Climate change/resiliency - effects on natural and human health/systems
* Emergency preparedness and response
* Health and hazards
* Crime, violence, personal safety/health
* Injuries, disabilities, risk
* Built environment – land use, transportation, resource management systems, Complete
Streets, infrastructure, “Healthy Communities” (Applying GIS to Build a Healthy
Community); also livability; active communities (transportation and recreation)
* Epidemiology; disease vectors; spread of infectious diseases – emerging technologies
and health issues (Ebola response, Zika virus/PAHO)
* Exposures (air quality, water quality, lead, etc.)
* Chronic diseases and the environment, including cancers, diabetes and obesity
* Mobile field data collection mobile field data collection (examples: homeless point
in time counts, food safety/restaurant inspections, facility inspections that includes
things like hospitals, nursing homes, foster care sites, etc.)
* Community mapping; crowd-sourcing health-related data
* Data privacy, confidentiality
* Other related topics
For further details and the online abstract submission form,
http://www.urisa.org/URISAHealth