Geostatistics: a common link between medical geography, mathematical geology, and medical geology
P Goovaerts
Since its development in the mining industry, geostatistics has emerged
as the primary tool for spatial data analysis in various fields, ranging
from earth and atmospheric sciences to agriculture, soil science, remote
sensing, and more recently environmental exposure assessment. In the
last few years, these tools have been tailored to the field of medical
geography or spatial epidemiology, which is concerned with the study of
spatial patterns of disease incidence and mortality and the identification
of potential ‘causes’ of disease, such as environmental exposure, diet
and unhealthy behaviours, economic or socio-demographic factors. On
the other hand, medical geology is an emerging interdisciplinary
scientific field studying the relationship between natural geological
factors and their effects on human and animal health. This paper
provides an introduction to the field of medical geology with an
overview of geostatistical methods available for the analysis of
geological and health data. Key concepts are illustrated using the
mapping of groundwater arsenic concentration across eleven Michigan
counties and the exploration of its relationship to the incidence of
prostate cancer at the township level.
Keywords: geostatistics, medical geology, spatial epidemology, groundwater,
arsenic.