Record numbers and unprecedented participation at the 2024 Health GIS Day

2025 is said to be a perfect year (or, at least, a perfect square, as 2025 is the square of 45); but for the Geography of Health & GIS Analysis (GOH) study group, 2025 will be far from perfect, because, like in all odd-numbered years, it will not feature our traditional health GIS day event. But, thankfully, we can remember our 2024 health GIS day: a memorable event, with a record number of excellent quality contributions, and participation from all the continents, as our map below proudly shows.

Since 1999, GIS day has been held on the third Wednesday of November, during Geography Awareness Week. It celebrates GIS work, research, achievements, future, and, above all, GIS people. We, the GOH study group, organize a health-GIS day every second year, and 2024 was our fifth event. Once again, we held GIS day online, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, this allows us to welcome more speakers and participants, and to broaden the range of topics presented.

We were fortunate to host two fascinating keynote speeches: Dr. Rocco Panciera, Geospatial health specialist with UNICEF, discussed the use of geospatial technologies on the frontline of health research; Dr. Nigel Waters, Professor Emeritus of Geography, took us through five ways in which GIS can help in the next pandemic. You can check them out on our website (Geography of Health and GIS | O'Brien Institute for Public Health | University of Calgary) along with all the lightning talks, which took us from Canada to India, Pakistan, New Zealand, the United States, China, and to Nigeria. Our call for contributions was broad, and we could not hope for a better range of topics connecting public health with our environments and our societies: from prevention to accessibility, emergency response, environmental risk to urban environments; from food to child labour to mental health. Always through the lens of spatial thinking.

This 2024 health-GIS day brought a nice surprise: it showed us that we had grown as a study group and health-GIS community, and that we had improved our ability to truly connect through space, overcoming distances, and through a mature interpretation of technology. This time more than ever we saw our participants engage in questions and discussions that reached the core of health GIS analysis.

Well done GOH, well done GIS people all over the world! We look forward to having you at our next Health GIS Day in 2026. 

Map by Xiaoxiao Liu