The goal of this intermediate course is to familiarize students with the applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to assess or evaluate urban health challenges, and potential solutions, with a focus on the Philadelphia context. Students are expected to have some prior experience with using GIS. Through hands-on exercises based on local case studies, students will gain practice in assessing the relationship between aspects of our environments (e.g. housing, trees and parks, food/nutrition) and health in Philadelphia. Class sessions will consist of briefs lectures and extensive hands-on computer lab exercises that students can tailor based on geographic location or health outcome interests.

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Use GIS tools such as spatial overlays, interpolation and zonal statistics with both vector and raster data.
• Utilize GIS tools in combination with basic statistics and graphing to answer urban health research questions.

Prerequisite knowledge: Knowledge of basic concepts and techniques of GIS or an introductory course in GIS is required. Prior basic knowledge of ESRI's ArcGIS Pro software is recommended for this course.

Technical requirements: A temporary license for Esri's ArcGIS Pro will be provided for participants to install on their computers.