Abstract:Most health-related issues such as public health outbreaks and epidemiological threats are better understood from a spatial-temporal perspective and, clearly demand related geospatial data sets and services so that decision makers may jointly make informed decisions and coordinate response plans. Although current health applications support a kind of geospatial features, these are still disconnected from the wide range of geospatial services and datasets that geospatial information infrastructures may bring into health. In this paper we are questioning the hypothesis whether geospatial information infrastructures, in terms of standards-based geospatial services, technologies, and data models as operational assets already in place, can be exploited by health applications for which the geospatial dimension is of great importance . This may be certainly addressed by defining better collaboration strategies to uncover and promote geospatial assets to health community. We discuss the value of collaboration, as well as the opportunities that geographic information infrastructures offer to address geospatial challenges in health applications.
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