BACKGROUND
Location matters! Whether it’s understanding spatial disparities in health and well-being, mapping environmental risks, or uncovering regional socio-economic patterns and trends – geospatial data adds a powerful dimension to social sciences and public health research. Understanding how to integrate geospatial data with survey data, sensor data, or administrative records opens new research possibilities and enhances interdisciplinary analyses.
WORKSHOP GOAL
This training aims to provide researchers with foundational knowledge of geospatial data and its applications in the social and health sciences. Participants will learn key concepts such as coordinate systems, projections, and GIS software while gaining hands-on experience in linking geospatial data with individual datasets using R, which offers powerful packages for spatial analysis, ensures reproducibility, and enables seamless integration with statistical workflows.
By the end of the training, participants will understand key geospatial concepts, have ideas about how to integrate geospatial data into their research, and have first practical experience using R for geospatial analyses.
WORKSHOP CONTENT
- Overview of geospatial applications in public health and social sciences.
- Fundamentals of Geospatial Data: Understanding key concepts such as coordinate systems and projections.
- Introduction to GIS software, R for geospatial analysis, geospatial data portals, data sources, data formats, and API engines for data access.
- Practical exercises in working with geospatial data, integrating individual datasets, and applying basic spatial analysis techniques.
TARGET AUDIENCE & PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
This training is designed for researchers across all disciplines and career stages who have little to no prior experience with geospatial data or programming in R. The practical examples will focus on integrating geodata with datasets from the social and health sciences and are therefore particularly interesting for scientists with a background in either of these fields.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
ABOUT THE TRAINER
Annika Nolte and Dr. Susanne de Vogel are data scientists for training and consulting at the DSC.
Annika holds a master’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the Technical University of Braunschweig (2019). She has over five years of experience in scientific programming, specializing in data management and processing, hydroinformatics, geospatial analysis, and AI for environmental modeling. In training and consulting, Annika draws on her research background and broad interdisciplinary expertise in Earth system sciences.
Susanne holds a diploma in Social Sciences from the University of Cologne (2013) and a PhD in Sociology from the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (2019). Susanne has worked for over 10 years on the development and implementation of various panel studies at the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW) in Hanover. Her competencies lie in the collection, preparation, analysis, and management of (survey) data.