Medical Geography, Second Edition
- Book Review,
by Melinda S. Meade, Robert J. Earickson
From Book News, Inc.
This revised and expanded edition surveys the perspectives, methodologies, and theories geographers use to address human health and illness. Providing a broad-based, comprehensive survey of the diversity of medical geography, for upper-division undergraduates and graduates, the volume also serves as a reference for classifications, processes, and systems approached from a holistic and international perspective. In sum, the book provides necessary biology for geographers to understand disease processes and the necessary geographical background for health researchers to understand spatial processes. Topics include the biometeorology of health status, geographies of disease in economically developed areas, health care delivery systems worldwide, and worldwide pollution from noise, radiation, chemicals, and the byproducts of burning. Both authors are medical geographers, Meade at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Earickson at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR
Review
"Medical Geography was a landmark work by Meade, Florin, and Gesler when it was first published in 1988, and its updating by Meade and Earickson is both timely and essential. This edition retains the integrity of the original volume while injecting new and updated material. Two new chapters are included on research methodology and data analysis, including epidemiologic methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A medical geography text that does not address such issues today would be scorned as superficial by epidemiologists. Conversely, almost all epidemiology texts are considered insufficient by medical geographers as they lack a spatial perspective and discussion about the ecology of disease. This text is important in that it makes a step towards bridging the gap between the disciplines and provides a solid text for advancing the field. Designed as an integrated text for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students with a geography background, the volume utilizes a holistic perspective and international examples....Meade and Earickson have provided the discipline with a solid and updated text that will serve a one semester course in medical geography well. Instructors will find this book easy to use for developing a new course in medical geography as the topics flow in a logical manner. Researchers without a special perspective will find it a useful first exposure to the spatial analysis of health-related data. Those who are already trained in the field will want to have the text on their shelves as a proud trophy that medical geography lives."--Social Science & Medicine
"The book thoroughly introduces its reader to the field....Major strengths of the book are its careful documentation of the authors' sources and its helpful lists of further readings....This is a book with important messages for many audiences: medical epidemiologists, medical sociologists, medical economists, and any politician interested in helping to solve--or better, prevent--the problems associated with disease."--Science Books and Films
Review
"Medical Geography was a landmark work by Meade, Florin, and Gesler when it was first published in 1988, and its updating by Meade and Earickson is both timely and essential. This edition retains the integrity of the original volume while injecting new and updated material. Two new chapters are included on research methodology and data analysis, including epidemiologic methods and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). A medical geography text that does not address such issues today would be scorned as superficial by epidemiologists. Conversely, almost all epidemiology texts are considered insufficient by medical geographers as they lack a spatial perspective and discussion about the ecology of disease. This text is important in that it makes a step towards bridging the gap between the disciplines and provides a solid text for advancing the field. Designed as an integrated text for upper-division undergraduates and graduate students with a geography background, the volume utilizes a holistic perspective and international examples....Meade and Earickson have provided the discipline with a solid and updated text that will serve a one semester course in medical geography well. Instructors will find this book easy to use for developing a new course in medical geography as the topics flow in a logical manner. Researchers without a special perspective will find it a useful first exposure to the spatial analysis of health-related data. Those who are already trained in the field will want to have the text on their shelves as a proud trophy that medical geography lives."--Social Science & Medicine
"The book thoroughly introduces its reader to the field....Major strengths of the book are its careful documentation of the authors' sources and its helpful lists of further readings....This is a book with important messages for many audiences: medical epidemiologists, medical sociologists, medical economists, and any politician interested in helping to solve--or better, prevent--the problems associated with disease."--Science Books and Films
Book Description
This essential text surveys the perspectives, methodologies, and theories that geographers use to address the subject of human health and disease. Wide ranging and international in scope, the volume synthesizes knowledge from across the social, physical, and biological sciences. Coverage includes the cultural ecology of disease; landscape epidemiology; developmental change and human health; biometeorology; disease ecology and spatial analysis in developed countries; spatial interaction in disease diffusion; health care resources, delivery systems, and planning; and research methodologies and data-analytic techniques. Throughout, clearly presented vignettes examine special issues and demonstrate the use of advanced statistical tools. The text is richly illustrated with tables, figures, and maps, including a four-page color insert..
From the Back Cover
"This is an improved second edition of a text that has become required reading in most upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses on medical geography. Coverage of various subdisciplines has been enhanced with topical examples and discussions of the new analytical techniques that have come to the fore in the last decade, such as the impact of GIS. The reader is shown the interaction between various geographic systems--including physical, cultural, and political surfaces--and different disease surfaces, via a series of case studies. The sections on spatial analysis and visualization are particularly interesting, as these are at the root of the current research dialogue between medical geography and public health. This text serves as an excellent teaching tool for a first class on medical geography and as a general resource for anyone interested in these issues." Andrew Curtis, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University
About the Author
Melinda S. Meade is a professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also an adjunct professor of epidemiology, a member of the ecology curriculum, and a fellow of the Carolina Population Center.
Robert J. Earickson, a medical geographer, is an emeritus professor of geography at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
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