Using Geographic Information for Disease Surveillance at Mass Gatherings

Mass gatherings present the medical community with an excellent window of opportunity to study infectious diseases that can be transmitted over long distances. This is because the venue of a mass gathering usually does not change year-to-year. As a result, special attention can be given to the public health risks that are introduced by travelers from around the world into these mass gatherings. Travelers can also be infected with diseases that are endemic in the host country and transport the locally acquired infectious diseases to their home environments. Therefore, mass gatherings can be thought of as global-to-local-to-global events because of the initial convergence of global populations and the subsequent divergence of populations throughout the world. This chapter discusses three active areas of geographic research that have emerged from our understanding of disease surveillance at mass gatherings: the role of transportation and population geographies in disease surveillance; the spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental geography in the spread of disease; and the advances in GIScience that provide real-world surveillance and monitoring of disease and injuries at mass gatherings.