Seven up - refreshing medical geography: an introduction to selected papers from the Seventh International Symposium in Medical Geography, Portsmouth, U.K.

The collection of papers which follows this brief introduction has been drawn from over 70 originally presented at the International Symposium in Medical Geography, held at the University of Portsmouth, U.K., in the summer of 1996. This symposium, the seventh in a series which has now run for over a decade, was attended by some 140 delegates from 20 countries. In retrospect, our marketing of the meeting as the “premier world event in medical geography” was not misplaced. We were able to group papers together into themed sessions covering the gamut of current concerns in the geographies of health, health care and health policy and, through generous sponsorship, a plenary session was offered on significant contributions to the geography of health by non-geographers. The papers which follow provide ample illustration of the range of topics covered in the meeting.