ABSTRACT
Geographers have a long history of enriching our understanding of many of the most pressing and complex issues of the day. In the health arena, geographers are not only providing insights to some of the key global public-health challenges such as obesity, tobacco use and the transmission of infectious diseases, but also identifying the implications for health and well-being of a much wider set of social, political and environmental concerns, including transnational migration, globalization, the financial crisis and climate change. The chapters in this section consider some key perspectives and debates that have occupied health geographers in recent years and examine the contribution that work in health geography has made to addressing these international challenges. Subsequent sections in the book will consider how health geographers have gone about answering some of these questions, who has been the subject of this work, and which places and spaces have been integral to answering these questions.
