Towards Healthy Public Policy

As an issue that affects a significant portion of the Canadian population, food security must be addressed in public health policy and research. Decision-making for food security is a complex task that needs to take into account a diverse range of issues including production, processing, distribution, access, consumption, and waste management. This approach to policymaking for food security, known as food systems analysis, makes use of a large amount of geospatial data. Public health informatics can offer some potential answers to handling and using this large amount of information. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and how they are used in public health, particularly for food systems analysis. A hypothetical scenario that envisions using a type of spatial analytic tool, called Spatial On-Line Analytic Processing (Spatial OLAP or SOLAP), for public health decision-making is also introduced. In describing both GIS and spatial OLAP, a case for incorporating food systems analysis into public health practices is made.