ABSTRACT
Research in health geography is typically concerned with variations in human health across places and spaces. Medical geography typically uses ideas of risk that are also common in fields of medicine and epidemiology and in environmental sciences. The chapter considers risk conceptualized as a combination of hazard and vulnerability as well as opportunity and resilience. Risks are often interpreted as factors that are hazardous for health and that increase the statistical chances of developing disease, whereas resilience is examined through analysis of population factors that seem to be protective against the risk of disease. The chapter shows how measures are examined for both people and places and at different geographical scales, ranging from local neighborhoods to wider regions or nations. A significant part of research in health geography involves either statistical or qualitative estimation of risk in terms of the likelihood of a health outcome occurring in association with a given set of conditions.
