When compared with other population groups in the United States, African-Americans are at the greatest risk for cancer. This study used GIS to map the accessibility of various food types in two small towns — the first step in investigating whether there is a causative relationship to the risk of cancer. Results from this study will be used to identify predominantly African-American communities in Alabama at increased risk linked to a lack of healthy food options.

Epidemiology — tracking the spread of disease, in order to better control and prevent it — benefits greatly from the use of mapping tools. Public health departments worldwide are employing GIS, demographic information, and remote sensing data in their battles with bird flu, malaria, and cancer.

The Cascade Range, which traverses Washington, Oregon, and California, comprises several links in the long chain of volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean — the "Ring of Fire." These volatile peaks formed where the boundaries of the Pacific plate grind against other tectonic plates, causing earthquakes and releasing magma from far below the surface

Tracking Cattle in the Heartland Sep 1, 2005 By: Mary Ann Stewart

To limit the risk of introducing such highly communicable diseases as mad cow and tuberculosis into the U.S. food supply, the state of Kansas has built a spatio-temporal tracking system that traces the movements of cattle as they pass through that state's highly traveled beef-industry crossroads.

Since September 2004, a new lava dome inside North America's most active volcano has grown as high as a 35-story building and as broad as 29 football fields; and scientists are using a cadre of geospatial technologies to monitor the volcano's deformation.