Humanitarian Geoanalytics

Founded: 2018
Faculty Leads: P. Gregg Greenough, MD, MPH, MS, and Erica Nelson, MD, PhM, MAS
Status: Active Program
Research Themes: public health, disaster medicine, international emergency medicine, global health, climate change, land use and urban planning, ecological and human security, natural disasters, migration, conflict, gender and vulnerable populations

Description

The HHI Humanitarian Geoanalytics Research and Education (HumGeo) Program leverages geospatial data and analytics to transform humanitarian research, programming, and education through the practical, effective, and ethical application of spatial analytics. Using a broad range of geostatistical techniques and technologies, HumGeo conducts rigorous research to create standardized methodologies designed to address a range of inter-disciplinary domains including climate sciences, migration, conflict studies, public health, land use and urban planning, and critical geography—while the primary focus lies in population-based, epidemiological study. The program supports organizations without in-house capacity for spatial analytics and simultaneously is committed to fostering a new generation of humanitarians and researcher that value, understand, and employ geoanalytical methodologies in humanitarian and global health spheres.

Current Program Activities

  1. Exploring migration and climate in the East and Horn of Africa: A spatio-temporal analysis in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration
  2. Strengthening Health Systems in Protracted Conflicts and Fragile States: The unexplored potential of spatial analytics
  3. A spatio-temporal characterization of the association between COVID-19 prevalence and Emergency Medical Services utilization in Massachusetts
  4. The Environmental Impact of Refugee Influx: A spatial analysis of satellite imagery of Kutupalong Refugee 3 Settlement, 2016-2018
  5. Supporting Early Warning/Early Action: The role of spatial analytics in Atrocity Prevention decision-support
  6. Supporting the development of an agent-based model capturing the spread of Ebola in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Team