In a successful follow-up to the First International Geospatial Geocoding Conference, organizer and USC GIS Research Lab Associate Director Dr. Dan Goldberg has edited special issues of the journals Transactions in GISand Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology focusing on advances in geocoding and its relevance to the health sciences.
Geocoding is the process of taking text-based addresses and returning geographic locations, usually in the form of latitude-longitude pairs. It is critically important to spatial analysis of any activities where location is defined by address or other text-based geographic reference that can be geocoded.
To communicate the recent and rapid advances in geocoding, Goldberg guest edited a special issue ofTransactions in GIS with eight research papers covering topics from georeferencing Twitter messages to theevaluation of geocoding capabilities in Brazil. Goldberg’s opening editorial emphasizes the need for researchers to be aware of the quality of their geocoding tools and for reference layers to which data can be geocoded and highlights to opportunity of adding a temporal dimension to geocoded datasets.
Goldberg co-edited the Special Issue on Geocoding in the Health Sciences for the journal Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology with Geoffrey M. Jacquez of BioMedware, Inc. The seven papers in this issue addressed various aspects of error in geocoding and their influence on health research. Goldberg and SSI Affiliate Faculty Dr. Myles Cockburn authored one of the papers, on the effects of administrative boundaries and geocoding error on measured cancer rates in California.
Printed copies of the Transactions in GIS special issue can be requested while supplies last from Dr. Goldberg atdwgoldbe@usc.edu.
