Health geography
Health geography studies how place, space, and environment shape health, illness, healthcare access, and the organization of health services.
Medical geography: A field examining the geographic distribution of disease, health, and healthcare. Health geography developed from medical geography while widening attention beyond disease mapping.
Spatial accessibility: The ease with which people can reach destinations or services across space. It measures how distance, transport, and location shape practical access to healthcare.
Health services research: The study of how healthcare services are organized, delivered, accessed, and experienced. It examines the geographic organization and accessibility of care.
Epidemiology: The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in populations. Epidemiology studies population patterns broadly; health geography foregrounds spatial relations and place.
Health equity: The principle that everyone should have a fair opportunity to attain their highest level of health. Geographic evidence can reveal where avoidable health disadvantages are concentrated.
Social determinants of health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that shape health. These conditions vary by place and help explain geographic differences in health.
Distance decay: The tendency for interaction or influence to decline as distance increases. Travel distance can reduce use of healthcare even when services formally exist.
Spatial epidemiology of infectious diseases: The analysis of infectious disease patterns and transmission across geographic space. Mapping outbreaks can reveal clusters, spread routes, and uneven exposure.
Public health: The organized effort to protect and improve the health of populations. Health geography is one perspective within the broader practice and scholarship of public health.
Inverse care law: The principle that availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with need. Its pattern can be mapped across places where illness and service provision diverge.