Person:

Burns, Bonnie

Founded in 1818, the Harvard Map Collection (HMC) is the oldest map collection in America, holding 400,000 maps, more than 6,000 atlases and thousands of reference books. HMC has a strong commitment to digital resources and manages the Harvard Geospatial Library, a foundation for geospatial data service at Harvard. The Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University (CGA) was founded in 2006, independent of the library system, to serve the entire university. This article presents the history, organizational structure, and operational model of CGA and HMC, reviews achievements, lessons learned, suggests future improvements, and reviews GIS-related medical research at Harvard.

The Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) at Harvard University supports research and teaching that relies on geographic information. This includes supporting geographic analysis for public health research at Harvard. This article reviews geographic concepts that apply to public health, pertinent data available in geographic format, and GIS analytical techniques. The work-flow methodology the CGA has developed for conducting research with geographic data will be presented, highlighting successful practices to follow and pitfalls to avoid. Applications of this work flow are illustrated through an in-depth discussion of specific case studies in public health research at the university.