Department of Public Health

Harnessing the Power of Geoinformatics to Improve Health Care: A 2-Day Workshop for Health Professionals and Researchers
May 29 and 30, 2025
9:00 am - 5:00 pm
In Person or Online (Zoom)
On site: Annenberg Building, Room A5-212
1468 Madison Avenue

Offered by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Department of Public Health in collaboration with the
Department of Environmental Medicine

Unlock the Power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Health Care

Geoinformatics is revolutionizing health care and research. By integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS), professionals can analyze spatial data to address critical public health challenges. From mapping disease outbreaks to evaluating health care access and environmental impacts, GIS offers powerful insights for decision-making.

Why GIS Matters in Health Care

Health organizations across the spectrum—public health departments, hospitals, medical centers, research institutions, and insurers—are leveraging GIS to:

Visualize health trends and disparities through spatial mapping
Analyze environmental and social determinants of health
Enhance patient care by integrating GIS with electronic health records
Support pandemic response efforts, such as tracking COVID-19 spread and vaccine distribution

No prior GIS experience? No problem! This workshop is designed for professionals looking to develop a strong foundation in geospatial analysis.

Workshop Details

Dates: Thursday, May 29 and Friday, May 30
Time: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Location: In-person: Room A5-212, Annenberg Building, 1468 Madison Avenue
or online via Zoom (select option on registration form)

Instructors:

Itai Kloog, PhD

Mike Z. He, PhD

Maayan Yitshak-Sade, PhD

Ryan Michael

Registration & Pricing*

Mount Sinai Employees & Staff: $1,000/pp total

🔹 Potential funding available through CTSA—apply during registration.

Non-Mount Sinai Participants: $1,200/pp total

Registration deadline: Friday May 23, 4:00 pm (ET)

*includes breakfast and lunch

Need more information? Email healthcaremasters@mssm.edu

Overview

This introductory workshop will include introduction to geoinformatics for participants not familiar with geospatial research. This workshop is a great source of information for anyone who wants to learn the essentials of mapping, GIS and working geospatial data. It’s designed to accommodate participants such as epidemiologist, clinicians, public health professionals, bio-statisticians or any other health professional. The course is led by Dr. Itai Kloog and Dr. Mike He from the Department of Environmental Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. This workshop will integrate in class lectures with hands-on application.

Course learning objectives and training approach

We will cover the foundational concepts of GIS including a) working with spatial data, b) base mapping concept, c) geocoding, d) visualization, e) thematic mapping, f) working with data repositories, e) spatial epidemiology, f) measurement error etc. Specific skills and tools will also be introduced in relation to methods for spatial linkage of exposure, contextual and confounder information for epidemiological or health risk assessment studies. This course will be a mix of lectures, demonstrations and practical time for hands-on data analysis. We will only use free and open-source tools (QGIS, R, leafletjs, PostGIS) widley available for academic use.

By the end of the course, students will understand how GIS can be used to enhance public health and epidemiological research; able to acquire, add, manipulate, visualize, and map spatial data in a GIS; and be able to perform basic spatial analyses in a GIS.

Requirements

No prior knowledge of GIS topics is required; this is an introductory workshop, therefore suitable for beginners. As for the technical requirements, in class labs will require the use of a laptop and the various software tools used in the course. Please bring a compatible laptop (Winows/macOS/Linux) to the workshop. Make sure the laptop has internet connection capabilities (Wi-Fi), a web browser and permission to install software (QGIS,R). You will learn by doing.

Main software used

QGIS and R (R code will be optional for bonus course materials)