Specific Aims

The central mission of Duke’s Center for Geospatial Medicine (CGM) is to develop sound and systematic, spatially-based methodologies for assessing and analyzing the pathways through which the environment, genetic, and psychosocial domains jointly shape child health and well-being. We will bring together scientists from across the university and medical center with expertise in psychology, economics, molecular biology, genetic epidemiology, genomics, behavioral science, and spatial statistics to craft new understanding of the causal connections among the many factors that influence outcomes in children. Specific goals of this Center are:

• To develop and operate an interdisciplinary research center with a focus on understanding how genetic, environmental, and social aspects of vulnerability combine to affect children’s health and well-being;

• To promote interdisciplinary research interactions among programs in biomedicine, environmental health, and social sciences;

• To advance new methodologies for incorporating innovative spatial analysis into health research and policy practice;

• To develop new and creative analytic approaches that address spatial/temporal variation, multiple comparisons, confounding, and effect modification;

• To train young scholars in the resulting methodologies.

The Duke Center for Geospatial Medicine is funded through the National Institutes of Health as part of the Roadmap Initiative, grant number 1-P20-RR020782-01.