¿As the world becomes more integrated through the trade of goods and services and capital flows, it has become easier for diseases to spread through states, over borders and across oceans ¿ and to do serious damage to vulnerable human and animal populations. ¿ American RadioWorks and NPR News, 2001 The global cost of communicable diseases is expected to rise. SARS has put the world on alert. We have now Avian Flu on the watch. Recognizing the global nature of threats posed by new and re-emerging infectious d- eases and the fact that many recent occurrences originated in the Asia - cific regions, there has been an increased interest in learning and knowing about disease surveillance and monitoring progresses made in these - gions. Such knowledge and awareness is necessary to reduce conflict, d- comfort, tension and uneasiness in future negotiations and global coope- tion. Many people are talking about the GIS and public and environmental health. The way we make public policies on health and environmental m- ters is changing, and there is little doubt that GIS provides powerful tools for visualizing and linking data in public health surveillance. This book is a result of the International Conference in GIS and Health held on 27-29 June 2006 in Hong Kong. The selected chapters are organized into four themes: GIS Informatics; Human and Environmental Factors; Disease modeling; and Public health, population health technologies, and surve- lance.

There has been a shortage of materials to document the developments of health GIS in the Asia Pacific region

Exploratory Spatial Analysis Methods in Cancer Prevention and Control.- Exploratory Spatial Analysis Methods in Cancer Prevention and Control.- Environmental Risk Factor Diagnosis for Epidemics.- Environmental Risk Factor Diagnosis for Epidemics.- A Study on Spatial Decision Support Systems for Epidemic Disease Prevention Based on ArcGIS.- A Study on Spatial Decision Support Systems for Epidemic Disease Prevention Based on ArcGIS.- Development of a Cross-Domain Web-based GIS Platform to Support Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases.- Development of a Cross-Domain Web-based GIS Platform to Support Surveillance and Control of Communicable Diseases.- A GIS Application for Modeling Accessibility to Health Care Centers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.- A GIS Application for Modeling Accessibility to Health Care Centers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.- Human and Environmental Factors.- Applying GIS in Physical Activity Research: Community 'Walkability' and Walking Behaviors.- Objectively Assessing' Walkability' of Local Communities: Using GIS to Identify the Relevant Environmental Attributes.- Developing Habitat-suitability Maps of Invasive Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia.L) in China Using GIS and Statistical Methods.- An Evaluation of a GlS-aided Garbage Collection Service for the Eastern District of Tainan City.- A Study of Air Quality Impacts on Upper Respiratory Tract Diseases.- Spatial Epidemiology of Asthma in Hong Kong.- Disease Modeling.- An Alert System for Informing Environmental Risk of Dengue Infections.- GIS Initiatives in Improving the Dengue Vector Control.- Socio-Demographic Determinants of Malaria in Highly Infected Rural Areas: Regional Influential Assessment Using GIS.- A Study of Dengue Disease Data by GIS Software in Urban Areas of Petaling JayaSelatan.- A Spatial-Temporal Approach to Differentiate Epidemic Risk Patterns.- A "Spatiotemporal Analysis of Heroin Addiction" System for Hong Kong.- A Public Health Care Information System Using GIS and GPS: A Case Study of Shiggaon.- GIS and Health Information Provision in Post-Tsunami Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam.- Estimating Population Size Using Spatial Analysis Methods.- Avian Influenza Outbreaks of Poultry in High Risk Areas of Thailand, June-December 2005.