Geographically Precise Public Health: Case of Southern Mozambique

Abstract

The spatial turns in health and other fields have opened new ways of data collection and analysis to reveal new insights in health sciences. Geographical information science has much potential of being applied in precision public health for community-level interventions. The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate how the geospatial sciences are increasingly an important aspect of this new approach public health. The chapter will first look at the principles of precision public health and how the transition from precision medicine to precision public health has evolved. A case study on spatial epidemiology in maternal health in Mozambique is introduced to demonstrate the value brought by geography to precision public health. Lastly, a discussion on the geographically enabled precision public health focuses on future challenges and opportunities.