GIS Training

The training content on this page comes from the GIS Surveillance for Heart Disease, Stroke, and Other Chronic Diseases in State and Local Health Departments project. See highlights of the project, including maps that demonstrate how the state health departments used their GIS skills.

The four geographic information systems (GIS) trainings are designed for public health professionals with little to no experience using GIS.

Getting Started with GIS

• An Introduction to GIS and Public Health. In this introductory training, participants will receive instruction on the use of GIS software and an introduction to commonly used and readily available data sources. At the end of the training, participants will have created several statewide and county-level thematic maps illustrating the use of relevant data for public health applications.

GIS Training Curriculum

• Organizing Principles: An Introduction to GIS. This training provides an introduction to some of the basic themes and concepts of GIS and hands-on use of ArcGIS Desktop software.
• Data Management: Creation, Edition, and Maintenance of Spatial Data. This training offers guidance and practice for the customization/creation of data to suit specialized GIS needs.
• Analysis: Applied Analysis Techniques for GIS in Chronic Disease. This training introduces several useful pieces of analytical GIS functionality with health applications, including network analysis, spatial analysis, and hotspot analysis.

These materials were developed collaboratively for selected state health departments under the guidance of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative (CEHI) at Rice University, with input from participating states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Learn more about CEHI.
• Learn more about the GIS capacity-building project.