Health outcomes are affected by the socio-demographic and physical-environmental characteristics of the places where people live. Therefore, epidemiologists have been interested in the use of maps to explore spatial patterns of disease for a long time. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are not only useful when visualizing complex spatial datasets but also when mapping the results of analytic...

datum Basis for measurement of position on the Earth’s surface. discrete object view Conceptualization of geographic phenomena as analogous to a tabletop littered with countable, possibly movable objects. ecological fallacy The fallacy of making inferences about individuals from aggregated data. field view Conceptualization of geographic phenomena as a set of functions over geographic space. ge...