Session: Geographic and Spatial Analysis in Social Work Research: Concepts and Tools (Research that Promotes Sustainability and (re)Builds Strengths (January 15 - 18, 2009))

Social work has long been interested in how context affects the wellbeing of individuals and groups. In particular, the places where people live, work, go to school and carry out their activities have been implicated as a potential source of disadvantage, especially for people of color and for low income individuals. Researchers who are interested in these issues need to be familiar with a variety of methods of spatial and geographic analysis so that they can correctly describe and model these place-based processes. The presenters will discuss: the conceptual basis for geographic and spatial analysis in social work research, sources of geographically referenced data and geo coding methods, the uses of maps for exploring spatial patterns in data, statistical approaches to contextual and spatial analysis (including multi-level modeling with geographic units, spatial dependence, spatial regression and spatial clustering methods).