Geographical information management approaches: improvements in health and social care

The existence of adequate and reliable information to assess population health is essential to build solid strategies for public health promotion and social care, as to help demonstrate efficient investment in these areas. There are several health-related databases, covering different scales: World, Europe, or National, including several datasets with different details. These different datasets should be reviewed and selected on the basis of their ability to support efficient strategies associated with monitoring population health and their usefulness in the promotion of health care efficiency. To understand the relevance of these database infrastructures when integrated with Web-based, geographical information management tools, and use these to improve the knowledge of health issues, this chapter integrates examples related to enhancing the performance analysis of this collaborative spatial data infrastructure in three distinct areas: national health systems and health care; disease prevalence studies in different countries, and integrated analysis of environment quality and public health.