Missing Component Adding place when evaluating health risks The Genetics + Lifestyle + Environment = Risks The value of GIS in enhancing response to emergencies, such as wildfires or hurricanes, is widely recognized. However, this technology can also play a lifesaving role in responding to catastrophes on a more personal level. At TEDMED 2009, the Technology, Entertainment, and Design in Medicine conference, Esri global marketing manager for health and human services Bill Davenhall recounted how this was brought home to him by a heart attack in 2001 that hit him so forcefully and unexpectedly that he referred to it as "a train wreck." In his presentation Can Geographic Information Keep You Healthy? Davenhall suggested that a patient's geographic (or place) history should routinely be considered by physicians when diagnosing and treating patients. There is abundant evidence that the use of GIS has dramatically impacted the public health. Medical epidemiologists have extensively used GIS to establish the relationships between person, place, and time as these factors pertain to disease outbreaks. GIS has also been used by public health officials to protect communities from otherwise overlooked risks and toxic exposures. However, the geographic component 10 ArcUser Winter 2010 has been remarkably absent from the treatment of individual patients. For individuals, health risk factors can be expressed by a simple formula: Genetics + Lifestyle + Environment = Risks. Patient histories focus on the first two factors but completely ignore the last. When taking a patient's medical history, questions deal with the health and medical conditions of a patient's relatives (genetics) and the patient's personal habits (lifestyle) but nothing is asked about where the patient lives or has lived. Davenhall observed that a great deal of research has been invested in relating what happens in the environment to human health but "this information is not used in a direct way by your doctor." Geospatial technologies have the potential to help diagnose, treat, and, in some cases, prevent illness. The emerging field of geospatial medicine, or geomedicine, could generate a type of medical intelligence that leverages national spatial data infrastructures to the benefit of personal human health. The key to delivering geospatial intelligence to health care professionals requires capturing and accessing information about where a patient lives and has lived—that patient's place history. The widespread use of geospatial technologies is making capturing this information increasingly easy. The ubiquity of the Internet makes accessing this information from virtually anywhere equally simple. During his presentation, Davenhall demonstrated a simple application developed for the iPhone for collecting a personal place history. www.esri.com