Medical geography

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The health geography (also: Geomedicine , geography of Health , Geographical Health Research ; outdated: Nosogeographie ) is concerned with the spatial determinants of pathogenesis and distribution on the one hand as well as the health care on the other hand. It represents an "interface between humans and the natural and anthropogenically influenced environment" or between geographical and medical , especially epidemiological , research and, compared to other areas of geography, has a high application relevance . As an independent discipline, it emerged in German-speaking countries from tropical hygiene and tropical medicine and is still a niche subject today, while it is more strongly integrated internationally into general geographic research.

Designation and disciplinary assignment

The older and internationally more compatible term medical geography as well as the term geomedicine , which has meanwhile become more firmly anchored in institutions, refer to the two lines of development of the subject (see the history section ). Based on the Anglo-American health geography , the terms geography of health or geographic health research are now also used. The term nosogeography (see nosology ) coined by Adolf Mühry is no longer in use.

Medical geography has traditionally been one of the core subjects of physical anthropogeography , especially with its original focus on climatic conditions and especially since there are areas of overlap with geographic risk research . Within medicine there are links to environmental and travel medicine as well as public health .

history

Map of the Cholera Cases in London in 1854 by John Snow

The three-volume work Attempt at a general medical-practical geography (1792–1795) by Leonhard Ludwig Finke contains the first known cartographic representation of the worldwide spread of diseases and is considered one of the founding works of modern medical geography. In the 19th century, other medical-geographical treatises appeared, for example by Adolf Mühry ( The Geographical Relationships of Diseases, or Basics of Nosogeography , 1856) and August Hirsch ( Handbook of Historical-Geographical Pathology , 3 volumes, 1860–1864), their meaning not Finally, it was based on the assumption, which was still widespread at the time, that environmental influences were directly responsible for the outbreak of diseases ( miasm theory ). At the same time, the mapping of cholera cases, particularly by John Snow in London, contributed to the emergence of bacteriology . As an aid in determining the cause of illness, the focus of medical-geographical research shifted to the field of colonial and tropical medicine .

In 1931, Heinz Zeiss delimited analytical geomedicine from descriptive medical geography , explicitly following the concept of geopolitics . The latter had the task of describing those environmental factors in an area that were associated with the outbreak and spread of diseases. Geomedicine, on the other hand, should not only undertake the analysis of these interrelationships, but should also directly influence decisions on population policy by means of cartographic representations . Associated with this was a turning away from the social hygiene that had emerged in the years before towards a racial hygiene that was practiced by the National Socialists in the following years . For example, Zeiss, with the collaboration of Helmut Jusatz and others, created the epidemic atlas intended for military purposes . Even after the end of the Second World War, the “special route” of geomedicine was continued. In 1952 the first volume of the world epidemic atlas published by Ernst Rodenwaldt was published . In the same year Rodenwaldt founded the Geomedical Research Center of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences , which after his death from 1965 to 1985 was headed by Jusatz and determined the geomedical research. In addition to atlases, medical country customers were created during this time , so that there were points of contact within geography at best with geographical development research . The extensive disciplinary isolation of the subject also meant that there was no critical examination of its origins in colonialism and racial ideology.

Unlike in Germany, medical geography was institutionalized internationally after the Second World War, primarily within geography, for example in the International Geographical Union or, by the French-born tropical medicine specialist Jacques M. May , in the American Geographical Society . In addition, May also laid the first conceptual foundations, and health research was established as a second research area alongside disease research.

Methods and Topics

A large part of medical-geographical research is application -oriented, geared towards the goals of health , but also supply and environmental justice , the possibilities of which have been greatly expanded, especially through the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems. With spatial epidemiology ("spatial epidemiology ") there is an independent, interdisciplinary subject area that deals with the spatial variation of cases of illness using statistical methods. In addition to the occurrence of infectious diseases, one of the main research areas is the location-dependency of cancer . Human and veterinary issues are dealt with.

In addition, there is a research direction based on social theory that deals with the specific health quality of places. Medical geography is embedded in a more general geography of the body, which in turn is influenced by feminist theory , disability studies or concepts from psychology . In addition to subject-centered approaches, complexity-theoretical considerations also play an increasing role.

literature

  • Jobst Augustin, Daniela Koller (ed.): Geography of health: The spatial dimension of epidemiology and supply . Hogrefe, Bern 2017, ISBN 978-3-456-85525-7 .
  • Tim Brown, Sara McLafferty, Graham Moon (Eds.): A Companion to Health and Medical Geography (=  Blackwell companions to geography . Volume 8 ). Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, et al. a. 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-7003-1 , doi : 10.1002 / 9781444314762 .
  • Anthony C. Gatrell, Susan J. Elliott: Geographies of Health: An Introduction . 3. Edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, et al. a. 2014, ISBN 978-0-470-67287-7 .
  • Thomas Kistemann, Jürgen Schweikart: From disease ecology to the geography of health . In: Geographical Rundschau . tape 62 , no. 7-8 , 2010, pp. 4-10 .
  • Thomas Kistemann, Jürgen Schweikart, Carsten Butsch: Medical Geography (=  The Geographical Seminar ). Westermann, 2019.
  • Thomas Kistemann, Jürgen Schweikart, Harald Leisch: Geomedicine and Medical Geography: Development and Perspectives of an “old partnership” . In: Geographical Rundschau . tape 49 , no. 4 , 1997, p. 198-203 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Kistemann: Geography, medical. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 476 f .; here: p. 476.
  2. ^ Karlheinz Paffen: Position and meaning of the physical anthropogeography . In: Geography . tape 13 , no. 4 , 1959, pp. 354–372 , doi : 10.3112 / geography . 1959.04.08 .
  3. ^ Nancy D. Lewis, Jonathan D. Mayer: Disease as natural hazard . In: Progress in Human Geography . tape 12 , no. 1 , 1988, p. 15-33 , doi : 10.1177 / 030913258801200102 .
  4. ↑ D. Hauri: Medical Geography . In: Practice . tape 96 , no. 42 , 2007, p. 1627-1630 , doi : 10.1024 / 1661-8157.96.42.1627 .
  5. ^ Frank A. Barrett: A medical geographical anniversary . In: Social Science & Medicine . tape 37 , no. 6 , 1993, pp. 701-710 , doi : 10.1016 / 0277-9536 (93) 90363-9 .
  6. ↑ a b c Thomas Kistemann: geography, medical . In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 476-477 .
  7. ^ Heinz Zeiss: Geomedicine (geographical medicine) or medical geography? In: Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift . tape 5 , 1931, pp. 198-201 .
  8. ↑ Sabine Schleiermacher: The hygienist Heinz Zeiss and his concept of "Geomedicine of the East" . In: Rüdiger Vom Bruch (ed.): The Berlin University in the Nazi era . tape 2 . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08658-7 , pp. 17-34 .
  9. ↑ Jens Thiel: The teaching staff of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in National Socialism . In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth, Rüdiger Vom Bruch (ed.): History of the University of Unter den Linden . tape 2 . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-004667-9 , pp. 465-538 .
  10. ↑ a b c Thomas Kistemann, Jürgen Schweikart, Thomas Classen, Charis Lengenfelder: Medical geography: The spatial view of health . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . tape 108 , no. 8 , 2011, p. 386–388 ( aerzteblatt.de [PDF]).
  11. ↑ a b Hans Jochen Diesfeld: Geomedicine . In: Timothy G. Ashworth (Ed.): Tropical Pathology (=  special pathological anatomy ). 2nd Edition. tape 8 . Springer, Berlin a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-540-57673-8 , pp. 25-59 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-57863-2_2 .
  12. ↑ Hans Jochen Diesfeld: Geomedicine between medical geography and geography of health, a transdisciplinary discussion . In: Harald Leisch (Ed.): Perspektiven der Entwicklungsländerforschung. Festschrift for Hans Hecklau (=  Trier geographic studies ). tape 11 . Geographical Society, Trier 1995, ISBN 3-921599-22-9 .
  13. ↑ Olaf Briese: Fear in the times of cholera . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003779-2 .
  14. ↑ cf. the commemorative publication Werner Fricke, Jürgen Schweikart (ed.): Illness and space: the pioneer of geomedicine Helmut Jusatz in memory (=  geographic knowledge . Volume 115 ). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-515-06648-9 .
  15. ^ Jacques M. May: Medical Geography: Its Methods and Objectives . In: Geographical Review . tape 40 , no. 1 , 1950, p. 9-41 .
  16. ^ Sarah Curtis: Health and Inequality: Geographical Perspectives . Sage, London / Thousand Oaks 2004, ISBN 0-7619-6823-7 .
  17. ↑ Patrick Sogno, Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann, Claudia Kuenzer: Earth Observation Data Supporting Non-Communicable Disease Research: A Review . In: Remote Sensing . tape 12 , no. 16 , 2020, doi : 10.3390 / rs12162541 ( mdpi.com [accessed August 9, 2020]).
  18. ^ Richard S. Ostfeld, Gregory E. Glass, Felicia Keesing: Spatial epidemiology: an emerging (or re-emerging) discipline . In: Trends in Ecology and Evolution . tape 20 , no. 6 , 2005, p. 328-336 , doi : 10.1016 / j.tree.2005.03.009 .
  19. ↑ programmatic: Andréa Litva, John Eyles: Coming out: exposing social theory in medical geography . In: Health & Place . tape 1 , no. 1 , 1995, p. 5-14 , doi : 10.1016 / 1353-8292 (95) 00002-4 .
  20. ^ Wilbert M. Gesler: Therapeutic landscapes: Medical issues in light of the new cultural geography . In: Social Science & Medicine . tape 34 , no. 7 , 1992, pp. 735-746 , doi : 10.1016 / 0277-9536 (92) 90360-3 .
  21. ^ Robin A. Kearns: Place and Health: Towards a Reformed Medical Geography . In: The Professional Geographer . tape 45 , no. 2 , 1993, p. 139-147 , doi : 10.1111 / j.0033-0124.1993.00139.x .
  22. ↑ Ruth Butler, Hester Parr (Ed.): Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment and Disability . Routledge, London a. a. 1999, ISBN 0-415-17902-5 .