KEYNOTE ADDRESS | Shapeflies to Social: The role of GIS in social aspects of health
Dr. Debs Ghosh, University of Connecticut
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Dr. Debs Ghosh, currently an Associate Professor of Geography at University of Connecticut, has a Ph.D in Geography from University of Minnesota, a MPhil in Population
Studies, and a MA in Regional and Urban Development from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. With significant experience working on urban health issues from an interdisciplinary approach, Dr. Ghosh is also a Principal Investigator of the Institute on Collaboration
for Health Intervention and Policy, co-director of mHealth/ehealth research interest group, and affiliated with Yale University Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS.
Dr. Ghosh informally describes herself as someone who is driven to understand how health is affected by anything outside of pills, needles, and scalpels. As a trained health geographer, however, Debs' research and teaching are primarily focused on the relationship
between place and health, where place is a multidimensional unit, connecting people (vulnerable populations), things (facilitators and barriers), and environment. Central to this is her diverse yet complementary skill set including GIS, spatial statistics,
mixed methods, social network analysis, mobile-health, and more recently, the design of interventions. The ultimate goal is to conduct spatial behavioral interventions where research findings are translated to practice. She views this as a way to give back
to the vulnerable populations and communities that have historically experienced societal-level exclusion and marginalization. To that end, more recently, Dr. Ghosh is working in interdisciplinary-collaborative teams including academic colleagues and community-based
organizations such as Hartford Food Alliance, UConn-Extensions, Greater Hartford Harm Reduction Coalition, DC based HIV-CBOs, Yale-New Haven's Community Health Care Van, and Connecticut's Judicial Branch.
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