Abstract

The public health epidemiology is the study of horizontal and vertical structure of the disease infection state, and health related events and attempt to explain the environmental risk factors (biological, physical, and chemical agents); social settings and factors affecting human contact with these agents, and socioeconomic and environmental condition. GIS has been used to mapping the epidemiological information which includes the burden of disease epidemic transmission, spatial distribution and the determinants of health related states or events in specified population with reference to space and time. Perhaps, remote sensing and GPS has been integrated under the GIS umbrella for disease surveillance, situation analyze and the spatial modelling of disease transmission. The first application of cartography was used in the public health epidemiology for mapping diarrhea disease in London, during 1854 by Jonson Snow, UK physician. However, the applied GIS and remote sensing have not only become essential tool in mapping the both vertical and horizontal epidemiological information, disease surveillance, health monitoring, surveying, sampling design, disease control programs, predicting the disease transmission, and most importantly, incorporated the ge0spatial epidemiological analysis of proximity, similarity, geometry, and cognitive of the disease incidence and the socioeconomic and the ecological variables. It has also become significant decision making tool in heath monitoring, health care management and public health epidemiology. The ERDAS Imagine image processing software and the ARC GIS, Map INFO, Geovariogram+, SPSS are used to mapping, spatial analysis and image processing of the both non-spatial and spatial data. The illustrations are used in the present study based on the data generated from the source of author’s research works and publications, which has relevant information on the public health epidemiological aspects of vector borne disease transmission and GIS for epidemic control and management in India.

Key words: Remote Sensing; Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Health Monitoring; Health Care Management; Geospatial Analysis; Spatial Modelling; Public Health Epidemiology