Healthy Regions & Policies Lab

We invite chapter proposals on the social-spatial determinants of health for a new text, a volume edited by Drs. Kolak and Moise, to be published in early 2024 by Springer Nature. The book, tentatively entitled Place & the Social-Spatial Determinants of Health, will explore how a spatial perspective enriches our view of the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH). 

We are especially looking for chapters to be added to the final section of the book on Operationalizing Social-Spatial Determinants of Health. These would include empirical illustrations, evaluation studies, place-based policy examples, and other policy impact or real-world application analyses.

Additional sections of the book include: Defining Social-Spatial Determinants as Conceptual Frameworks (ex. theory-driven positionalities & frameworks); Measuring Social-Spatial Determinants of Health (ex. methodological best practices & innovations); Understanding Social-Spatial Determinants of Health (ex. emerging, critical, & new transdisciplinary perspectives); as well as commentaries to introduce and close the book. 

HOW TO SUBMIT: Submit your proposed book chapter title, 250-word abstract, and author(s) biography(ies) using this form by December 15, 2022. Decisions on the chapter topic will be delivered by January 31, 2023. If invited, you will be asked to submit your manuscript by April 30, 2023. Full-length chapters will be expected to be between 4000-6000 words, and subject to the peer-review process; revisions are expected within two months of receipt.

ABOUT THE SERIES: This book responds to an increasing call of action on the social determinants of health (SDoH) to move the needle on health outcomes, costs, and interventions that promote health equity, respond to structural racism, and how the spatial perspective influences, expands, and enriches the concept of SDoH – so much so, that it may be viewed as the Social-Spatial Determinants of Health. The scale of the challenge posed demands an extraordinary response, which prompted us to bring together a leading interdisciplinary group of scholars to interrogate these issues and answer these questions: what is a spatial perspective of SDoH? How have social scientists such as geographers, epidemiologists and sociologists measured, defined, understood, and used SDoH to advance health and health equity? Are the spatial structural factors that drive, reinforce, and/or perpetuate health outcomes sufficient that we must consider the Social-Spatial Determinants of Health, rather than just the social? This book will provide views on expanding conceptual frameworks of health, interrogate and offer new case studies of how SDoH concepts and measures have been defined and operationalized, including on barriers and facilitators posed by a lack of standardization, metric alignment, inconsistencies in SDoH data and measures. Although this will be a common theme and thread running through all the papers, the contributions in this book represent different perspectives and approach the issues from different angles through its assemblage of interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary team of experts.

ABOUT THE EDITORS: Marynia A. Kolak, PhD., MFA, MS is a health geographer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  using spatial epidemiology, spatial econometrics, and the application of GIS to assess the influence of place on health, and the production of social, spatial, and racial inequalities on driving health disparities. Marynia directs the Healthy Regions and Policies Lab (HeRoP) with recent applications in the opioid epidemic, COVID-19 pandemic, and development of spatial decision support systems to advance place-based policy thinking and community engagement.

Imelda K. Moise, Ph.D., MPH is a broadly trained health geographer, Associate Professor of Geography, M&E expert and is Director of Global Health Studies at the University of Miami. Her overarching program of research focuses on families and communities at risk. Based on her research interests, she runs a Geography and Inequalities Lab (GaIL), which is composed of an multidisciplinary group of students and community partners conducting research to advance the understanding of health inequities, seeking and contributing to solutions in diverse communities.