The physical and social environment that surrounds us plays an important part in our health and wellbeing. The geography concept of ‘place’ thus cannot be ignored in public health. Whether investigating the level of environmental pollution, access to recreation or health services, or the patterns or spread of disease, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide the standard platform for exploring spatial attributes and relationships between our environment and health.
This course consists of a mix of lectures, demonstrations and plenty of practical time for hands-on data analysis in industry standard GIS (ArcGIS, QGIS, R). No prior knowledge of GIS is required, though completion of pre-course work is essential preparation for this intensive course.
Who should attend this training?
Programme staff of Public Health humanitarian and development agencies including project managers, officers and assistants.
What are the key modules of the training?
- Introduction to GIS and how it is used in public health and epidemiological research;
- Working with and integrating spatial and non-spatial data;
- Geographic scale and spatial precision;
- Projections;
- Geocoding;
- Visualization;
- Thematic mapping;
- Understanding spatial relationships;
- Route analysis and spatial linkage of exposure, contextual and confounder information for epidemiological or health risk assessment studies;
- Case study.
What are the main training objectives?
The following objectives will be achieved by the end of the training:
- To understand how GIS can be used to enhance public health and research;
- To acquire, add, manipulate, visualize and map spatial data in a GIS;
- To be able to perform basic spatial analyses.
What learning approach and language will be used in the training?
The entire training will be facilitated in English.
The training delivery method includes in-person interactive lectures, brainstorming, groupwork, PowerPoint presentations, articles, videos, quizzes and assessments.
When is the training period?
2nd to 6th February 2026
Fee information
The training cost is US$ 400 which will cover the tuition fees, learning materials and certification.
How to register
To register for the course, you need to complete our course application form then proceed to pay the training fees through any of the following options: bank transfer, Western Union or WorldRemit Internet Money Transfer. The deadline for registration is Sunday 1st February 2026.
