Integrated Revealing GIS Models to Monitor, Understand and Foresee the Spread of Diseases and Support Emergency Response

The importance of GIS models to monitor the spread of infectious diseases and support emergency response has been underlined by a large body of literature and strengthened by the COVID-19 pandemic to identify possible solutions able to recognise spatio-temporal clusters and patterns, evaluate the presence of acceleration factors and define specific actions. In the field of applied research on health geography and geography of safety, this work briefly displays the main aims of the project “Integrated revealing GIS models to monitor, understand and foresee the spread of diseases and support emergency response” and shows some illustrative applications. The basic assumption of the project is to test revealing models regarding key objectives of social utility, and one of its main aims is to elaborate GIS applications able to understand the spread of COVID-19, relating the geocalisations of the cases with specific variables. In order to provide targeted evidence able to better highlight local differences, a number of elaborations derived from (Arc)GIS models and based on data regarding COVID-19 according to sex, age and healthcare facilities in the Rome municipality (Italy) are presented and contextualised as examples, also replicable for precision preparedness.