Geo-health integrates spatial analysis methods and concepts with epidemiology to provide you with skills to address a variety of health and disease analyses

Interested in learning how to make planetary health a reality and help create a sustainable, healthy liveable world? Are you interested in assessing health risks due to environmental changes (e.g. climate, land use) or evaluating who is at risk and how to respond, or want to make a map from known cases to understand where something is taking place and identify disease or transmission hotspots?

Take our 10-week online geo-health course to learn how to integrate geographic information, use different geospatial technologies and apply spatial data science methods to understand different health aspects better.

Registration for this course is now closed. If you wish to be informed of the upcoming registration dates, please provide your contact information.

First name

Last name

Email address

Yes! The UT may store my data and keep me updated with useful news and information about studying at ITC.

Dear ,

Thank you for your interest in the course Geo-Health - 7EC (online course). We received your information and will let you know as soon as the new registration period is open.

Should you have any further questions about the course content, tuition fees, available scholarships and more, please visit the course page and feel free to contact us through the email education-itc@utwente.nl if you need any further assistance.

Kind regards,

University of Twente | Faculty ITC

Please note that this message should not be considered as confirmation of registration to any course.

Geo-Health aims to give students comprehensive knowledge and skillsets to critique and address a range of global health issues. Students will be introduced to a variety of topics and concepts centred around how geo-spatial information and technologies can be used for addressing health and disease. Three main facets of public health will be covered: health risk – understanding where and when risks are and who may be affected; health response & services – examining accessibility to healthcare and inequalities; and health communication & decision making – communicating risks and the role of digital information and tools in providing information and aiding the decision-making process that include data structures and ethics.

The difference between the 7EC and 5EC courses, is the study load. In the 7EC course students need to submit additional assignments.

What is geo-health?

In this video Professor Justine Blanford explains what is geo-health and how can it help solve the world's worst diseases.

For whom is Geo-health

The course is designed for Public Health Professionals and Crisis Responders or anyone with an interest in spatial epidemiology and an interest in health and disease mapping and modelling.

Geo-Health Course content

The Geo-Health course is organised around interactive weekly discussions and short weekly projects with a more substantial term project on a topic of your choice, due during the final week of the course (lesson 10). Each week you will tackle a specific health or disease problem integrating the theories with spatial data and different methods.

Problem scenarios range across:

data surveillance and infrastructure planning;
modelling vector-borne diseases;
evaluating and planning health infrastructure;
cluster analysis;
risk mapping;
networks and connectivity;
responding to disease outbreaks and epidemics;
and other application areas.

Course structure

The course has been designed to be 10 weeks in length. We expect you to complete one lesson each week. You need to spend a minimum of 12 hours per week on the course.

The course is organised around interactive weekly discussions and short weekly projects with a more substantial term project on a topic of your choice, due during the final week of the course (lesson 10). Each week you will tackle a specific health or disease problem integrating the theories with spatial data and different methods. Problem scenarios range across data surveillance and infrastructure planning, modelling vector-borne diseases, evaluating and planning health infrastructure, cluster analysis, risk mapping, responding to disease outbreaks and epidemics and other application areas.

What will be achieved?

Orientation (week 0)
After completing Week 0 you should be able to:
1. Familiarize yourself with the course and what is expected of you
2. Meet fellow students and instructors
Geo-health the role of Geospatial Information, Science & Technology for health and disease  (week 1)
After completing week 1 you should be able to:
1. Define Geo-health 
2. Define what epidemiology is 
3. Explain the chain of infection 
4. Describe the different modes of transmission
5. List the components of the epidemiologic triad 
6. List factors important in the occurrence of infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases 
7. Describe the interactive public health approach and how it can be used for managing and planning public health
8. Describe the five classes of spatial analysis functions 
9. List how geographic data and maps have been used for health and disease 
10. Describe how modern tools and technologies are useful for mapping and analyzing disease.
Spatial data - what is spatial data and why it is special; Ethical considerations (week 2)
After completing week 2 you should be able to:
1. List different data types 
2. Identify data sources useful for exploring health and disease outcomes 
3. Explain why spatial data is special and limitations associated with spatial data (MAUP, boundary effects, patterns) 
4. Distinguish and critique between authoritative vs. non-authoritative data sources 
5. Explain privacy and ethical concerns associated with mapping and using health and disease data 
6. Explore technologies and assess how these can be used for collecting health and disease data 
7. List and explain the critical components important in conceptualizing a data framework for monitoring public health.
Vector-borne disease and ecology (week 3)
After completing week 3 you should be able to:
1. List factors important in understanding the ecology of vector-borne diseases 
2. Examine the epidemiologic triad for different vector-borne diseases 
3. Examine different methods of complexity used to map and model vector-borne diseases 
4. Explain data-driven approaches  
5. Explain theoretical approaches and how overlay methods and raster-based modelling approaches can be used 
6. Describe the epidemiologic triad for malaria 
7. Apply complex map algebra operations to model risk of vector-borne disease - malaria 
8. Describe how these outputs are useful for recovery and response planning.
Statistics and data visualizations (week 4)
After completing week 4 you should be able to:
1. Describe the research process used to investigate patterns associated with health and disease  
2. Calculate summary statistics (central tendency, variability) 
3. Calculate the three centres of spatial data distributions 
4. Explain and calculate measures of risk that are used to characterize overall health of populations (ratio, proportion, incidence proportion, incidence rate, prevalence, mortality rate) 
5. Describe the concepts of basic biostatistics and how these can be applied to summarize and analyze health and disease data 
6. Assess how visualizations can be useful for examining disease.
Clustering analysis (week 5)
After completing week 5 you should be able to:
1. Explain what cluster analysis is 
2. Explain how cluster analysis can be used in health studies 
3. List different clustering methods that can be used for clustering analysis
4. Identify the reasons for and advantages of cluster analysis
5. Perform spatial clustering analysis
6. Map clusters to examine and evaluate spatial patterns in the data.
Accessibility to healthy environments (weeks 6 and 7)
After completing weeks 6 and 7 you should be able to:
1. List factors important in determining access to health care
2. Review different approaches used to model accessibility
3. Describe approaches useful for examining access to healthcare based on network analysis including distance, time and cost
4. Explain the map algebra concept and raster analysis
5. Evaluate the disparities of accessibility to health care
6. Propose solutions to improving access to health care.
Outbreaks: communicating during a crisis (week 8)
After completing week 8 you should be able to:
1. Identify what surveillance data are important 
2. List the steps important in an outbreak investigation 
3. Describe the spatial tools that are useful at each of these steps 
4. Identify data limitations during a crisis-response situation 
5. Analyze an outbreak and describe the spread and distribution of human cases 
6. Critique analytical outputs and data visualizations and evaluate their usefulness in assessing and communicating risk 
7. Create an interactive outbreak map that would be useful for communicating risk 
8. Evaluate the usefulness of web maps in communicating risk during an ongoing outbreak.
Complete Term Project. No planned course activities (week 9)
Note that there are no other course activities at all this week, to give you plenty of time to work on completion of the project.
Submit term project and discuss term projects (week 10)

Online learning, what is it like?

The general approach of the course is task-based learning which blends theory and practice. The study load is a minimum of 16 hours per week. All materials will be available online in ITC’s digital learning environment Canvas. We will use email for individual communication and a discussion board in Canvas for group communication.

About your diploma

Upon successful completion of this course you will receive a Certificate which will include the name of the course.

Along with your Certificate you will receive a Course Record providing all the subjects studied as part of the course. It states: the course code, subject, ECTS credits, exam date, location and the mark awarded.

If you decide to follow a full Postgraduate or Master's course at ITC, and after approval of the Examination Board, you will be exempted from the course(s) you followed successfully as an online course.

Admission requirements

Academic level and background

Applicants for an online course should have a Bachelor degree or equivalent from a recognised university in a discipline related to the course, preferably combined with working experience in a relevant field.

Documentation

The faculty accepts transcripts, degrees and diplomas in the following languages: Dutch, English, and German. It is at the discretion of the faculty to require additional English translations of all documents in other languages as well.

Language skills

Success in your studies requires a high level of English proficiency. Therefore, prospective students with an international (other than Dutch) degree must meet the English language requirement. As proof that you meet this requirement, you will be asked in the application procedure to upload one of the requested language certificates:

IELTS (academic) with an overall band score of at least 6.0 (with a minimum sub-score of 6.0 for speaking and writing) and certificates not older than two years.
TOEFL iBT (internet-based) with an overall score of 80 (with a minimum sub-score of 20 for speaking) and certificates not older than two years. Please note that the University of Twente does not accept the MyBest scores of the TOEFL test.
Cambridge C1 Advanced Formerly known as; Cambridge English Advanced (CAE), obtained with an A, B or C grade.
Cambridge C2 Proficiency Formerly known as; Cambridge English Proficiency (CPE) obtained with an A, B or C grade.

Only these internationally recognised test results are accepted. Without a valid certificate, we cannot process your application.

Other requirements

Ensure you have obtained a valid English test result before the application deadline. If your application is accompanied by a language test score report with a test date after our application deadline, we will not process it. Therefore, make sure to do the test in advance, as it will take time for you to get the official certificate.
When applying for a scholarship, the language requirements may be different because scholarship providers may have different requirements.

Exemptions
You are exempted from the English language requirement if you hold:

a relevant bachelor's degree from an accredited academic institution in the Netherlands
if you are a national of one of the countries in this list (PDF)
a three-year bachelor's degree in Australia, Canada (English-speaking part), Ireland, New Zealand, UK or USA. When your awarding institution is in one of these countries, but your teaching institution was not, you are not exempted. The same rule applies to distance (online) education.

Computer skills

To follow online education you must have basic computer experience, regular access to internet, and e-mail. For some courses, additional computer skills are required (see description of specific course).

Technical requirements online education and assessment

For online education, we formulated guidelines to guarantee optimal performance. For online oral exams and proctoring during online assessments, the webcam and headset requirements need to be met.

GIS and remote sensing

Most online courses, except for the introductory course, require knowledge of, and skills in, working with GIS and/or digital image processing of remotely sensed data.

Candidates are asked to provide proof of identity during the registration process.

Key information

Certification
certificate
CROHO code
75014
Duration
10 weeks
Language
100% English-taught
ECTS
7
Tuition fees
Full period 2023 / 2024
part-time, non-EU/EEA
€ 1,953
part-time, ODA-rate
€ 1,463
part-time, EU/EEA
€ 1,953