Stephen D Smith ¹ E M Geraghty ² Ariel L Rivas ^3* Folorunso Oludayo Fasina ⁴ Michael Kosoy ⁵ Lile Malania ⁶ Almira Lydia Hoogesteijn ⁷ Jeanne Marie Fair ⁸

• ¹ Geospatial Research Services,, Ithaca, New York, United States
• ² Environmental Systems Research Institute (United States), Redlands, California, United States
• ³ University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States
• ⁴ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Italy), Rome, Lazio, Italy
• ⁵ KB One Health LLC, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States
• ⁶ National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (Georgia), Tbilisi, Georgia
• ⁷ Department of Human Ecology, CINVESTAV, Merida, Mexico
• ⁸ Genomics and Analytics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States

Research typically promotes two types of outcomes (inventions and discoveries), which induce a virtuous cycle: something suspected or desired (not previously demonstrated) may become known or feasible once a new tool or procedure is invented and, later, the use of this invention may discover new knowledge. Research also promotes the opposite sequence -from new knowledge to new inventions. This bidirectional process is observed in geo-referenced epidemiology -a field that relates to but may also differ from spatial epidemiology. Geoepidemiology encompasses several theories and technologies that promote inter/transdisciplinary knowledge integration, education, and research in population health.Based on visual examples derived from geo-referenced studies on epidemics and epizootics, this report demonstrates that this field may extract more (geographically related) information than simple spatial analyses, which then supports more effective and/or less costly interventions. Actual (not simulated) bio-geo-temporal interactions (never captured before the emergence of technologies that analyze geo-referenced data, such as geographical information systems) can now address research questions that relate to several fields, such as Network Theory. Thus, a new opportunity arises before us, which exceeds research: it also demands knowledge integration across disciplines as well as novel educational programs which, to be biomedically and socially justified, should demonstrate cost-effectiveness. Grounded on many bio-temporal-georeferenced examples, this report reviews the literature that supports this hypothesis: novel educational programs that focus on geo-referenced epidemic data may help generate cost-effective policies that prevent or control disease dissemination.