Visual approaches for strengthening research, science communication and public health impact.

Geospatial Health was launched as a forum for the publication of essential epidemiological information derived from the application of geographical information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), spatial statistics and remote sensing from Earth-orbiting satellites. The above-mentioned tools were developed in parallel over the last 50 years and were originally used for diverse applications with little in common. For example , GIS evolved as an extension of map-making, while remote sensing and GPS both emanate from rocket and satellite technology. The swerve that brought these disciplines together was neither shared goals nor cross-sectional appeal but the unrelated, parallel scientific advances resulting in the personal computer and the Internet. Indeed, the first GIS packages required mainframe computing, but increased computing power and plummeting hardware prices helped the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) emerge and sustain its leading role in GIS software. The release of ESRI's first desktop mapping system with a graphical user interface (ArcView) in 1992 marked the start of the process that eventually made GIS sufficiently user-friendly to allow use by individual researchers without computer expertise. Remote sensing was primarily intended for military intelligence, but the technology rapidly became the sine qua non for meteorology and cartography. It took, however, a surprisingly long time until its obvious possibilities for the medical and veterinary fields were realized. While GIS dramatically increases the amount of information that can be contained and manipulated in a map, remote sensing adds information on the landscape, e.g. surface temperature, humidity, rainfall, elevation, land cover, vegetation index etc., all parameters of direct importance for epidemiological research. Besides providing increasingly accurate measures for these parameters for local settings around the world, the inherent revisit aspect of the satellites supplying the imagery adds a non-trivial, temporal aspect to data collection. Although the development of supporting computer hard-and software , has grown exponentially, epidemiological research papers did not appear regularly until the late 1980s. Today, however, these technologies are well-known tools of the trade and few scientists working in the field of public and global health can manage without them. We, and all those participating in the editorial work for Geospatial Health, take pride in being part of the activities that have resulted in mounting reliance on carto-graphic representation of the burden of communicable diseases, including spatial data on the vectors and intermediate hosts of parasitic infections. In parallel with the powerful developments in the field of descriptive epidemiology …