ArcGIS Public Health Mapping and Spatial Analysis Training Course

Course overview

Public health teams need to show where need is concentrated, where services are missing, and whether interventions are reaching priority populations. Spreadsheets and static charts rarely reveal the geographic patterns behind vaccination uptake, chronic disease prevalence, environmental exposure, outbreak reports, service access, or health inequalities. This course equips participants to use ArcGIS to convert health and social care data into defensible maps and spatial evidence for programme planning, commissioning, community engagement, and operational decision-making.

Participants work through the ArcGIS workflow from preparing health datasets and defining geographic units to producing web maps, hotspot analyses, service-access models, and clear decision-support outputs. They learn ArcGIS Pro for data management, joins, geocoding, thematic mapping, spatial selection, proximity analysis, and cluster detection; ArcGIS Online for sharing controlled web maps and dashboards; and ArcGIS Survey123 for structured field or community data collection. The course also addresses denominators, rate standardisation, privacy-aware aggregation, suppression considerations, and the interpretation limits of spatial health data.

Teaching combines instructor demonstrations with guided labs based on realistic public health scenarios, including immunisation coverage, respiratory illness surveillance, social vulnerability, and access to primary care. Participants build a publishable ArcGIS project containing cleaned health data, an analytical map series, a hotspot or accessibility analysis, and an ArcGIS Online web map designed for a defined stakeholder audience. They leave with a documented workflow and an application plan that can be adapted to a live service, population health, or health protection question.

The course is suited to practitioners who need practical ArcGIS capability rather than a purely epidemiological or GIS-theory course. It serves both staff producing analysis and managers who need to assess, commission, or communicate geographically informed public health evidence.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Prepare health, population, and service-location datasets for analysis using ArcGIS Pro geodatabases and attribute validation
• Create choropleth, proportional-symbol, dot-density, and bivariate maps using appropriate health indicators and classification methods
• Calculate crude rates, proportions, and population denominators for small-area health mapping
• Geocode service, incident, and survey records and assess match quality before spatial analysis
• Run spatial joins, buffer analyses, and drive-time service-area models to assess access to care
• Identify statistically significant geographic clusters using Hot Spot Analysis and interpret the results responsibly
• Publish an audience-specific web map and dashboard-ready layers through ArcGIS Online
• Produce a privacy-aware public health mapping workflow, analytical map series, and implementation plan

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Public Health Analysts — who need to turn population health data into evidence for planning and intervention decisions
• Epidemiologists — who need to investigate geographic patterns in disease, exposure, surveillance, and service uptake data
• Health Intelligence Officers — who prepare small-area profiles, needs assessments, and commissioning evidence
• Health Protection Practitioners — who need to map incidents, clusters, contacts, and response coverage
• NHS and Social Care Commissioners — who need to assess service accessibility and inequitable provision across localities
• GIS Analysts in Health and Social Care — who need domain-specific methods for handling health indicators and confidentiality

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should be comfortable working with tabular data in Excel or CSV files, including field names, basic filtering, and simple calculations. Familiarity with public health concepts such as counts, rates, proportions, denominators, deprivation, or geographic areas is helpful but not essential. No prior ArcGIS experience is required: complete beginners should expect a structured introduction to ArcGIS Pro navigation, layers, attributes, projections, and map creation before moving into analysis. Participants do not need programming, advanced statistics, epidemiology qualifications, or prior experience with Python, R, SQL, or spatial databases.

Training methodology

The course is delivered through short instructor-led demonstrations followed by hands-on ArcGIS labs using public health datasets. Participants work individually on data preparation, thematic mapping, geocoding, spatial joins, hotspot analysis, and service-access modelling, with instructor feedback on analytical choices and interpretation. Case discussions examine issues such as small-number suppression, ecological fallacy, and communicating uncertainty. A final workshop gives participants time to assemble their own map-based briefing product and define how they will apply the workflow to a workplace health question.

Course outline

Day 1: Public health GIS foundations and data preparation

• ArcGIS Pro interface, projects, catalog pane, maps, and layouts
• Public health geographic units including postcodes, wards, census areas, and catchments
• Coordinate systems, projections, and spatial reference checks
• Health data structures: counts, denominators, rates, prevalence, and incidence
• Importing CSV, Excel, shapefile, GeoJSON, and feature service data
• Attribute validation, field calculation, null values, and coded domains
• Joins and relates between health indicators, population tables, and boundary layers

Workshop: Participants create a clean ArcGIS Pro project and join immunisation, population, and neighbourhood boundary data to produce an analysis-ready geodatabase.

Day 2: Thematic mapping and health inequality evidence

• Choropleth mapping for rates, proportions, and standardised indicators
• Classification methods: natural breaks, quantiles, equal interval, and manual breaks
• Proportional symbols, dot density, heat maps, and bivariate mapping
• Selecting colour ramps and legend designs for accessible health communication
• Normalising disease counts with population denominators
• Mapping deprivation, vulnerability, ethnicity, age, and other population characteristics
• Interpreting ecological fallacy, modifiable areal unit effects, and misleading visual patterns

Workshop: Participants produce a map series comparing chronic disease prevalence, deprivation, and vaccination uptake across small areas, with a written interpretation note.

Day 3: Spatial analysis for access, coverage, and surveillance

• Address geocoding and match-rate quality assessment
• Spatial selection and location queries for priority populations
• Buffer analysis for exposure zones and service coverage
• Spatial joins for aggregating incidents and service activity by area
• Near tools and distance calculations for nearest-service analysis
• Network-based drive-time service areas and catchment modelling
• Overlay analysis for identifying underserved or high-need localities

Workshop: Participants assess access to primary care by modelling 15-minute drive-time catchments and identifying high-need neighbourhoods outside service coverage.

Day 4: Cluster detection, web maps, and responsible sharing

• Spatial autocorrelation concepts and global pattern assessment
• Hot Spot Analysis using Getis-Ord Gi* statistics
• Interpreting confidence levels, false positives, and cluster outputs
• Optimised Hot Spot Analysis and incident aggregation choices
• Privacy-aware aggregation, small-number suppression, and disclosure risk
• Publishing hosted feature layers and web maps in ArcGIS Online
• Configuring pop-ups, filters, symbology, and sharing permissions for stakeholder use

Workshop: Participants run a hotspot analysis on respiratory illness reports, then publish a controlled ArcGIS Online web map with appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Day 5: Field data, decision products, and workplace application

• Survey123 form design for community surveys and field assessments
• Location capture, choice lists, constraints, and required fields in Survey123
• Using Esri Living Atlas demographic and social vulnerability layers
• Designing map layouts and briefing outputs for commissioners and community partners
• Building dashboard-ready layers, indicators, and filters
• Quality assurance checklist for public health maps and analytical claims
• Application planning for a live population health, service-access, or health protection question

Workshop: Participants assemble a final public health mapping briefing pack comprising a web map, analytical layout, workflow notes, and a 90-day workplace application plan.

Tools & standards covered

ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Survey123, Esri Living Atlas of the World

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions