Acknowledgments vii
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and colleagues at the Center to IMPACT
Diabetes in East Harlem; Blair Johnson, Center for Health, Intervention, and
Prevention (CHIP), University of Connecticut; Stanley Lemeshow, Mary Ellen
Wewers, and faculty and students at the Summer Program in the College of
Public Health at The Ohio State University; Patricia Mabry, National Institutes
of Health; Wendy Nelson and Pat Francis, URISA’s GIS in Public Health Con-
ference; Rachel Pruchno, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey;
Lorraine Reitzel, Lorna Haughton McNeill, and Dave Wetter, Department
of Health Disparities Research, MD Anderson Cancer Center; Timothy Sahr,
Health Policy Institute of Ohio; Jean Schensul, Marlene Berg, and Emil Coman,
The Institute for Community Research, and Kamla Gupta and S. K. Singh, Inter-
national Institute for Population Sciences, along with members of the ASHRA
project team in Mumbai; Philip Troped and Heather Whitcomb, Department of
Health and Kinesiology, Purdue University; Francine Laden, Channing Labora-
tory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Steve Melly,
Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program, Harvard School of Public Health;
Robin Puett, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of South
Carolina; Joan Twiggs and Darcé Costello, Connecticut Department of Children
and Families; Margaret Weeks, The Institute for Community Research; and the
faculty and staff of the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care,
University of Connecticut School of Medicine. I also thank Emily Marble, at The
Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut, for assistance in
research administration. Rich Mrozinski, Department of Geography, University
of Connecticut, and Howard Sternberg, Connecticut Department of Environ-
mental Protection, deserve special thanks for their great expertise in GIS and
their willingness to share it.
I (Sara L. McLafferty) extend thanks to colleagues and current and for-
mer students at the University of Illinois, Hunter College, and elsewhere for
their many contributions to this book. Many years ago, my PhD advisor, Gerard
Rushton of the University of Iowa, challenged and encouraged me to explore
the links between geographical analysis and social and health inequalities. A
renowned leader in GIS and public health, Gerry’s insights, intellect, and inspi-
ration provided the academic foundation that made this book possible and is
reflected in so many ways in my contributions to the book. I also consider myself
fortunate to have worked with many colleagues in investigating diverse health
issues in Illinois and in the New York metropolitan region. Special thanks to
Fahui Wang of Louisiana State University; Vince Freeman of the University of
Illinois at Chicago; Keith Clarke of the University of California at Santa Bar-
bara; Victor Goldsmith of Pace University; Nick Freudenberg of Hunter College;
Roger Grimson of SUNY Stony Brook; the members of the West Islip Breast
Cancer Coalition; Dr. Christina Hoven of Columbia University; and Dr. James
Childs of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York City
Department of Health generously gave permission to use individual-level rat bite
data to prepare several figures in this book. I am also extraordinarily grateful
to the many talented graduate students I have worked with on issues related to