The 1st International Symposium on Lifecourse Epidemiology and Spatial Science (ISLES) was successfully held in Leiden from 16-20 July 2018.
During a week-long symposium, a group of multi-disciplinary experts in both spatial science and public health gathered to share the state-of-the-art in both areas and explore a variety of open questions and pressing issues in the field of Spatial Lifecourse Epidemiology.
Attendees are from 22 institutions in nine countries, including directors of the Chronic Disease Division of the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and the Environment and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CEO of the Lifelines Biobank, and directors of several leading academic programs in the field of health geography, both in the Netherlands, such as the University of Twente, Utrecht University, Vrije University Amsterdam, University of Groningen, Maastricht University, and globally, such as Wuhan University (China), Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Haifa (Israel), Harvard University (USA), Arizona State University (USA), Ohio State University (USA), University of Iowa (USA).
The symposium was organized by Peng Jia (EOS), Alfred Stein (EOS), and Sherif Amer (PGM). Alfred Stein delivered the opening plenary talk about the frontiers in earth observation technology and ongoing GeoHealth research activities in ITC. ISLES has increased the visibility of the ITC GeoHealth Initiative. High-impact scientific outputs are on the way, being led by ITC and co-authored by ISLES participants on behalf of the International Initiative on Spatial Lifecourse Epidemiology (ISLE).
