Yang Tse-Chuan, Shoff Carla, Noah Aggie J
Social Science Research Institute and Population Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Geospat Health. 2013 May;7(2):161-8. doi: 10.4081/gh.2013.77.
Beyond individual-level factors, researchers have adopted a spatial perspective to explore potentially modifiable environmental determinants of health. A spatial perspective can be integrated into health research by incorporating spatial data into studies or analysing georeferenced data. Given the rapid changes in data collection methods and the complex dynamics between individuals and environment, we argue that geographical information system (GIS) functions have shortcomings with respect to analytical capability and are limited when it comes to visualizing the temporal component in spatio-temporal data. In addition, we maintain that relatively little effort has been made to handle spatial heterogeneity. To that end, health researchers should be persuaded to better justify the theoretical meaning underlying the spatial matrix in analysis, while spatial data collectors, GIS specialists, spatial analysis methodologists and the different breeds of users should be encouraged to work together making health research move forward through addressing these issues.
除了个体层面的因素外，研究人员还采用了空间视角来探索健康方面可能可改变的环境决定因素。通过将空间数据纳入研究或分析地理参考数据，空间视角可以整合到健康研究中。鉴于数据收集方法的快速变化以及个体与环境之间复杂的动态关系，我们认为地理信息系统（GIS）功能在分析能力方面存在不足，并且在可视化时空数据中的时间成分时存在局限性。此外，我们认为在处理空间异质性方面所做的努力相对较少。为此，应说服健康研究人员在分析中更好地阐明空间矩阵背后的理论意义，同时应鼓励空间数据收集者、GIS专家、空间分析方法学家以及不同类型的用户共同努力，通过解决这些问题推动健康研究向前发展。
