According to the World Health Organization “Better environmental management could prevent 40% of deaths from malaria, 41% of deaths from lower respiratory infections, and 94% of deaths from diarrheal disease.”  This translates to 13 million deaths each year, five million of which are children. And these threats are not restricted to developing countries. This same source notes that "In developed countries, healthier environments could significantly reduce the incidence of cancers, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, lower respiratory infections... " Importantly, many environmentally related deaths and diseases are preventable given the knowledge and resources needed to effect change. 

Geographers at the University of Iowa are actively engaged in teaching and research that leads to a better understanding of the complex relationships that exist among health, the environment, development, ethics, and equity. 

Students that study health geography at The University of Iowa have the opportunity to learn from leading experts with strong ties to key public health agencies (e.g., The National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and other highly ranked programs within The University of Iowa’s College of Medicine and College of Public Health.

As a student of Health Geography you can, for example, build expertise in:

• Decision support for health services
• GIS
• Public health
• Sensors and health monitoring
• Spatial and statistics analysis of health patterns

Recent topics of research in health geography at Iowa include:

• Advanced techniques for the analysis of spatio-temporal patterns of health and the environmental factors that affect health
• Advanced techniques for the visualization of spatio-temporal patterns of health and the environmental factors that affect health.
• The health effects of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Iowa
• The relation between air pollution and health in Delhi , India
• The relation between cancer and access to health care in Iowa