GIS Workshop: Visualizing and Analyzing Health Data
June 26-27, 2025 | Livestream, virtual
The next GIS Workshop is on June 26-27, 2025. Subscribe for updates to hear about registration opening!
The GIS Workshop is a two-day intensive workshop that will introduce participants to the fundamental concepts and hands-on techniques of health data visualization and analysis using publicly available open-source GIS programs.
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Jump to: Overview | Audience and Requirements | Instructor | Scholarships | Location | Testimonials | Registration Fees | Additional Information
GIS Workshop Overview
Summer 2025 dates: Livestream, online training June 26-27, 2025; 10:00am - ~4:30pm EDT
This two-day intensive course aims to introduce participants to the fundamentals of data visualization using the open-source QGIS program and building towards the introduction of foundational spatially-centered approaches to identifying relationships and associations among population and environmental variables. Led by Dr. Jeremy R. Porter and Dr. Joel Capellan two of the highest-rated teachers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the authors of many celebrated geospatial analysis publications and books, this workshop will integrate lectures with hands-on application. The workshop emphasizes the use of open-source software packages and publicly available environmental and demographic data as an example of potential applications of these data with spatially centered visualization and analytic techniques. The workshop is comprised of 4 components 1) visualization, 2) geo-processing, 3) cluster analysis, and 4) relationship identification. Within each component, a lecture is followed by an opportunity to put the methods learned into practice.
By the end of the workshop, participants will be familiar with the following topics:
- Principles of data visualization and analysis
- Sources and techniques for the acquisition and management of spatial data
- Methods and techniques for the visualization of spatial data
- Techniques for the identification of statistical spatial (and spatio-temporal) clusters
- Techniques for the incorporation of spatial information in more traditional regression methods of association and relationship identification among variables.
Audience and Requirements
Investigators at all career stages are welcome to attend, and we particularly encourage trainees, students, and early-stage investigators to participate. There are three prerequisites/requirements to attend this workshop:
- Each participant must have an introductory background in statistics.
- Each participant must be familiar and have a basic understanding of R.
- Each participant must have a laptop with QGIS, saTScan, GeoDa, R, and R-Studio downloaded and installed prior to the first day of the workshop. All of the packages listed are available for free download and installation on Mac, PC, and Linux devices. Personal laptops will be used for multiple workshop sessions.
If you have any specific questions about prerequisites/requirements, please email us(link sends e-mail).
Instructors
Jeremy Porter, PhD, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Porter is a Lecturer in the Environmental Health Sciences Department with his primary duties being associated with teaching and advising in the area of Public Health GIS and Spatial Statistics. Additionally, he is a Professor at the City University of New York and holds appointments in multiple departments and institutes throughout the university, where he is currently the Chair and Director of the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences Department at the CUNY-Graduate Center. He regularly serves in consulting capacities with a number of government, non-profit, and for-profit entities on research exclusively focused on the development and implementation of spatial methods.
Joel Capellan(link is external and opens in a new window), PhD, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Capellan is an Adjunct Professor in the Environmental Health Sciences Department, and is also an Assistant Professor of Law and Justice Studies at Rowan University. Substantively, Dr. Capellan specializes in mass casualty events and lone-actor violence. Methodologically, he specializes in spatial data analysis and multi-level modeling.
Scholarships
Scholarships are available for the GIS Workshop.
Location
The GIS Workshop is a livestream, remote training that takes place over live, online video on June 26-27, 2025 from 10am EDT - 4:30pm EDT. Please note this training is not a self-paced, pre-recorded online training.
Testimonials
"This was an excellent training that taught me multiple ways of doing a variety of spatial analyses and then visualizing the results. I can use the content from this course in my work almost immediately." - Fellow at Union of Concerned Scientists, 2024
"Great workshop to get an introduction to GIS and mapping. I went in with no prior experience beyond making a cloropleth map in Stata once, and I came out of this workshop feeling like I can do way more GIS work now!" - Postdoc at Stanford University, 2024
"The GIS workshop was highly informative because it covered several important methods of geographic data analysis such as GWR, spatial regression, space-time cluster analysis, etc. as well as the basic principles behind GIS and how it can be applied to various situations. The workshop also included labs in breakout rooms where attendees were able to use tools such as QGIS, R, GeoData, and SatScan to create maps, run tests such as GWR and Moran’s I, and analyze data across both time and space." - Non-profit Founder, 2024
Registration Fees
This fee includes course material, which will be made available to all participants both during and after the conclusion of the training.
Early-Bird Rate (through 4/15/25) | Regular Rate (4/16/25 - 6/19/25) | Columbia Discount* | |
---|---|---|---|
Student/Postdoc/Trainee | $995 | $1,195 | 10% |
Faculty/Academic Staff/Non-Profit Organizations/Government Agencies | $1,195 | $1,395 | 10% |
Corporate/For-Profit Organizations | $1,395 | $1,595 | NA |
*Columbia Discount: This discount is valid for any active student, postdoc, staff, or faculty at Columbia University. If paying by credit card, use your Columbia email address during the registration process to automatically have the discount applied. If paying by internal transfer within Columbia, submit this Columbia Internal Transfer Request form (link to form coming soon) to receive further instructions. Please note: filling out this form is not the same as registering for a training and does not guarantee a training seat.
Invoice Payment: If you would prefer to pay by invoice/check, please submit this Invoice Request form (link to form coming soon) to receive further instructions. Please note: filling out this form is not the same as registering for a training and does not guarantee a training seat.
Cancellations: Cancellation notices must be received via email at least 30 days prior to the training start date in order to receive a full refund, minus a $75 administrative fee. Cancellation notices received via email 14-29 days prior to the training will receive a 75% refund, minus a $75 administrative fee. Please email your cancellation notice to ColumbiaSPH.GIS@gmail.com(link sends e-mail). Due to workshop capacity and preparation, we regret that we are unable to refund registration fees for cancellations <14days prior to the training.
If you are unable to attend the training, we encourage you to send a substitute within the same registration category. Please inform us of the substitute via email at least one week prior to the training to include them on attendee communications, updated registration forms, and materials. Should the substitute fall within a different registration category your credit card will be credited/charged respectively. Please email substitute inquiries to ColumbiaSPH.GIS@gmail.com(link sends e-mail). In the event Columbia must cancel the event, your registration fee will be fully refunded.
Additional Information
- Register for the GIS Workshop. (LINK TO REGISTRATION FORM COMING SOON)
- Subscribe for updates on workshop details and registration deadlines.(link is external and opens in a new window)
- Contact the GIS Workshop team.(link sends e-mail)
The GIS Workshop is hosted by Columbia University's SHARP Program at the Mailman School of Public Health.
Jump to: Overview | Audience and Requirements | Instructor | Scholarships | Location | Testimonials | Registration Fees | Additional Information