Our health depends in part on environmental impacts. As Bill Davenhall shared at TEDMED, there are trends of specific health risks associated with specific locations. We need to know more about where we live and what impact it may have on our health.
To know more about location based differences, we would need multilayered maps covering both environmental factors and compare them with health problems. This could reveal potential risk factors on a large scale. A little along the same lines as Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, where they extensively elaborate on the various kinds of influences social networks have on us. Something similar for environmental impacts or even a combination of the two would likely provide very helpful and applicable information for both individuals, professionals, and policy makers.
Reference:
Davenhall, B. (Speaker). (2009, October). Your health depends on where you live [Video]. TEDMED Conferences. Retrieved January 25, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEtE-jOMQf8
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This is just awesome, and must definitely be one of the future steps of medicine. It's so simple really, just a matter of collecting and organizing the right information. Geo tracking is available to everyone through the iPhone, but there will probably be easier ways to do it. Hopefully a gadget similar to the fitbit, something which monitors heart rate and activity in combination with geo-tracking. Imagine what doctors could deduct from that!