Use of geo-processing system in Public Health: principles and applications

Abstract

In the present study is described the importance of the geographic information system (GIS) as a tool for performing research and as a subsidy for action planning in public health. Many investigators have described the construction of a health surveillance system based on a model to analyze the risk situations, aiming at replacing the individual risk model. This option employs the space as a reference, which potentially holds greater explanatory power for expressing different approaches to the profits and services for urban infrastructure. The geo-processing allows to observe the socioeconomic factors, the ways and the use of occupying the inhabited areas, to acquire relevant data for monitoring the sanitary surveillance, and also built and inhabited environment. The geo-processing works as an important tool for performing the identification, location and follow-up of populations. Therefore, the geo-processing contributes to the study on transmission, distribution and actions directed to the diseases and health problems control in a given scope area.