From wskinner@fast.net Thu Jun 28 11:10:58 2001 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f5SIAt049356 for ; Thu, 28 Jun 2001 11:10:55 -0700 Received: from dhssqb01.doh.state.nj.us (dhssqb01.doh.state.nj.us [205.148.40.4]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f5SIArX24290 for ; Thu, 28 Jun 2001 11:10:54 -0700 Received: from fast.net ([10.17.1.96]) by dhssqb01.doh.state.nj.us (Lotus Domino Release 5.0.7) with ESMTP id 2001062814072800:16498 ; Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:07:28 -0400 Message-ID: <3B3B7321.10AF04CB@fast.net> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:10:41 -0400 From: Ric Skinner X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: waphgis@u.washington.edu CC: OMAR KHAN Subject: Re: IHGC vs ESRI health conferences References: X-MIMETrack: Itemize by SMTP Server on dhssqb01/NJDHSS(Release 5.0.7 |March 21, 2001) at 06/28/2001 02:07:28 PM, Serialize by Router on dhssqb01/NJDHSS(Release 5.0.7 |March 21, 2001) at 06/28/2001 02:07:33 PM, Serialize complete at 06/28/2001 02:07:33 PM Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Rusty, An excellent question that I will try to clarify for you. While ESRI was a primary supporter of the first 2 International Health Geographics Conferences (IHGC-1; October 1998) and IHGC-2 (March 2000), the ESRI International Health GIS Conference and the IHGC are entirely separate entities. IHGC focused on bringing in a global audience with a variety of GIS applications and issues, and was not oriented towards any one vendor or platform. In addition, we also strived to make IHGC accessible to a wide variety of individuals and groups from the developing world and hope the ESRI conference will be similarly inclusive. >From feedback we have received, IHGC seems warranted about every 2 years. Omar Khan and I, the IHGC co-chairs, are taking the interval between IHGC-2 and (tentatively considered) IHGC-3 to work on editing a book: "Geographic Information Systems and Health Applications." We look forward to participants in the IHGC and the ESRI conference to provide chapters for this book. A number of health conferences are increasingly including GIS in their format, and conversely a number of GIS conferences are increasingly including health in their format. However, other than the excellent CDC/ATSDR Public Health GIS Conf. in 1998 (San Diego), we believe that recent IHGCs and the upcoming ESRI conference are the only ones devoted specifically to GIS applications and issues in healthcare, health science and health services. We are very pleased that ESRI has recognized the need for a health/GIS specific forum. With ESRI being the acknowledged leader in the health/GIS arena it is only appropriate that they organize a vendor focused venue. It will surely be an important compliment to the broader venue presented by IHGC. I hope this clarifies the matter, and we look forward to attending the ESRI International Health GIS Conference in November and renewing contacts with many of the IHGC attendees. Ric Skinner and Omar Khan Co-Chairs International Health Geographics Conference "Scalf, Rusty (DHS-EHIB)" wrote: > Greetings, > I was wondering if anyone would comment on the similarities/differences > between the International Health & Geographics Conference (held in Maryland > last year and sponsored by Johns Hopkins) and ESRI's International Health > GIS Conference (to be held this November in Washington D.C.) > Are these two conferences different in a meaningful way? I assume the > latter will only deal with ESRI product applications. Is there a need for > the latter in light of the former? > Any comments greatly appreciated. We are debating about going to the ESRI > version and abstracts are due tomorrow, 6/29. > -Rusty > > Rusty Scalf, GIS Specialist > Contractor to the California Dept of Health Services > 1515 Clay St. suite 1700 > Oakland, CA 94612 > 510-622-4520 > rscalf@dhs.ca.gov .