GGR353H5 Chapter Notes -Health Geography, Spatial Analysis, Reductionism
Document Summary
Looking for order or spatial patterning in a set of data. Emphasizes, via mapping and spatial analysis, what is observable and measurable. Classically positivist account would have, as its end goal, a search for laws, though weaker versions strive simply to make generalizations. The concern in positivist approaches to the geography of health is usually to detect areal pattern or to model the way in which disease incidence varies spatially. A positivist medical geography typically involves mapping disease data and then striving to describe and explain the spatial distribution. Criticism: individual is a rather anonymous person whose features and characteristics can be ticked off on a checklist. Critics of this perspective argue that it is reductionist. In general, relies on the use of quantitative, usually statistical methods. Location and distance are key variables in a positivist approach is seen not only in the study of health and disease but also in the study of health care and its delivery.