Course GIS in Health Sciences

The course P272/05 GIS in Health Sciences is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, 2024.

Criteria for participation:  University degree in public health, medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Aim: 

• Provide theoretical background of spatial data and analyses
  • Introduce participants to open-source GIS software (QGIS)
  • Give participants hands-on experience in spatial analyses with focus on health-related exercises

Learning outcomes: 

• Describe the basic concepts of GIS
  • Identify the different types of spatial data
  • Retrieve spatial data from open sources and own surveys and load them into a GIS program
  • Design and apply simple spatial analyses and evaluate their results
  • Present spatial data in appropriate maps

Workload: The full workload of the course is expected to be 30 hours

Content: 

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for handling and analyzing geo-related data are becoming increasingly important in the health sciences. Applications include, amongst others, exposure estimations in epidemiological studies, planning and management of emergency medical services, and tools for public health decision-makers. Participants will get an introduction into the theoretical background and hands-on experience of spatial data management and spatial analyses focusing on public health related exercises.

Theoretical background
• What is GIS and spatial data?
• Coordinate systems and projections
• Types of spatial data
• Sources of spatial data
• Spatial analyses

Hands-on experience (computer lab) with exercise-datasets, georeferencing, spatial analyses

Important: participants can bring their own laptop or use the computers in the computer lab. Please install the latest version of QGIS on your machine before the course starts. If you run into technical problems, we will assist you on the first day. Get QGIS here: www.qgis.org.

Venue: Aarhus University, Aarhus. A limited number of students can participate online (the course will be taught in a hybrid format). 

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 11 March 2024 09:00 - 16:00
• 12 March 2024 09:00 - 16:00
• 13 March 2024 09:00 - 16:00