Psychological intervention

GIS and public health

Cartography

Psychiatry

Telecommunications

Computer science

Environmental health

Geographic information system

Geography

Global Positioning System

Environmental resource management

Internal medicine

Environmental science

Data science

Remote sensing

Medicine

Obesity

Pathology

Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism

Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and remote sensing (RS) are revolutionizing obesity-related research. The primary applications of GIS have included visualizing obesity outcomes and risk factors, constructing obesogenic environmental indicators, and detecting geographical patterns of obesity prevalence and obesogenic environmental features. GPS was mainly used to delineate individual activity space and combined with other devices to measure obesogenic behaviors. RS has been understated for its role as important sources of data about natural and built environments. These spatial technologies, collectively called the 3S technologies, will be useful in measuring more facets of obesogenic environments and individual environmental exposure at finer levels and studying obesity etiology and interventions.

Spatial Technologies in Obesity Research: Current Applications and Future Promise