GeoAI and the Field of Social Work

Understanding how the future of the education and profession of social work could be enhanced by using Geospatial Artificial Intelligence

Geospatial Artificial Intelligence, or GeoAI, “is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with spatial data, science and geospatial technology to increase understanding and solve spatial problems” (ersi, n.d.). Unlike conventional AI, which often analyzes data without considering where events occur, GeoAI incorporates location as a fundamental source of information. By integrating satellite imagery, aerial photography, maps, GPS coordinates, census data, environmental sensors, weather and climate records, land use, transportation networks, and other spatial datasets, GeoAI provides richer context for understanding patterns across space. This enables AI models to identify relationships between people, places, and environments, resulting in more accurate predictions, improved resource identification, and more informed decision-making.

Dr. Gia Barboza-Salerno, who researches the manifestation of violence across the lifespan from childhood to old age with a vested interest in vulnerable population, recently participated in a conference CFP: Workshop of GeoAI for Autonomous Spatial Analysis where they presented on Tipping the Spatial Scales of Justice Toward Spatiolegal Reasoning in Autonomous GeoAI. In attendance were many engineers, geographers, computer scientists, but little to no social workers.

While the technology itself is fascinating, what interested Dr. Barboza-Salerno most was how GeoAI can help social workers better understand how place shapes people’s lives. GeoAI is about understanding how neighborhood environments contribute to health, safety, opportunity and well-being.

Person-in-Environment Technology

“Geography contextualizes what we are seeing and what social workers bring. It’s identifying disparities and how we use these tools to close the gap. Everything has a geographical component – aging in place, climate related, violence. Everything we study in social work has a geographical component.” Dr. Barboza-Salerno explains when urging the profession of social work to keep up with the development of AI.

Dr. Barboza-Salerno explains that GeoAI is about understanding how neighborhood environments contribute to health, safety, opportunities and well-being.

Traditionally, social workers focus on individuals, families and communities. GeoAI allows us to study the places in which those individuals and families live and provides new tools for understanding how environments influence outcomes.

A central idea in social work is that where you live matters. GeoAI helps social workers measure that.

For example, two children may have identical family backgrounds. One grows up in a neighborhood with parks, trees, stable housing and low violence. Another grows up in a neighborhood with concentrated poverty, vacant lots, environmental hazards and high violence. Dr. Barboza-Salerno explains that GeoAI detects, quantifies and understands environmental differences at scales that manual methods or human effort cannot reach.

One area Dr. Barboza-Salerno explains of connection between social work and GeoAI is in the realm of environmental justice. Traditional studies might measure air pollution, green space and tree canopy. GeoAI can analyze street-level conditions, illegal dumping, heat islands, infrastructure quality, housing deterioration and environmental hazards using satellite imagery and street imagery across entire cities. The goal is to identify communities that have been systematically deprived of healthy environments.

Specific Uses for GeoAI

Dr. Barboza-Salerno studies community violence and uses GeoAI to move beyond simply counting shootings and ask a more fundamental question: what characteristics of places are associated with violence? Dr. Barboza-Salerno highlights below more ways GeoAI can create more defined research results

• Community Violence: AI can detect the presence of abandoned buildings, physical disorder, lack of green space, social isolation, transportation barriers and neighborhoods at elevated risk before violence occurs. For social workers, this shifts the conversation from blaming individuals to understanding environmental risk.
• Older Adults: AI can identify neighborhoods where older adults face social isolation, poor walkability, limited access to services, transportation barriers, poor mobility access, limited healthcare resources or conditions that make aging in place more difficult. GeoAI can help communities target interventions before problems emerge.
• Substance Use: Substance use does not occur randomly. AI can identify neighborhood conditions associated with housing instability, neighborhood disadvantage, limited access to treatment, social isolation and community disinvestment. Rather than asking only why a person is using substances, GeoAI allows us to ask which environmental characteristics increase risk or reduce access to support.
• Immigration: AI can identify immigrant communities facing language barriers, transportation barriers, limited access to services, segregation, service deserts and poor access to resources. GeoAI can help identify emerging immigrant communities that may be overlooked in planning efforts.
• LGBTQ+ Populations: AI can identify places where LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to experience discrimination, violence, social isolation or barriers to care. GeoAI helps connect individual experiences to broader community contexts.
• Communities of Color: AI can identify how historical policies such as redlining, urban renewal, segregation and discriminatory housing practices continue to shape health, violence, opportunity and access to resources today. GeoAI can help identify how these historical and structural inequities remain visible in geographic patterns and continue to influence communities across generations.

Dr. Barboza-Salerno explains that AI and GeoAI are not replacements for human expertise, social workers, community knowledge or lived experience. In many ways, they do the opposite. They provide new tools for centering lived experience by helping identify patterns that would otherwise remain invisible. The promise of GeoAI is that it allows analyzation of patterns across thousands of neighborhoods, millions of records and vast amounts of imagery that would be impossible for humans to review manually.

Dr. Barboza-Salerno’s sentiments complement the university-level focus on using AI for good.

Other Fields of Professions are Adopting AI for Good

Other fields are adopting GeoAI to support communities. For example, Courtroom5, an AI platform that charges a small fee to teach the everyday person how to Pro se, or to represent oneself, when the plan was to do so already and not hire a lawyer.

It is described as Justice Tech and was founded by Sonja Ebron and Debra Sloan after going to court and self-representing because they couldn’t afford a lawyer who experienced. The founders said after learning how to navigate a courtroom by themselves, they wanted to assist others in being successful.

Why Should Social Workers Care about GeoAI?

According to Dr. Barboza-Salerno, social workers have long recognized that place matters. GeoAI provides new tools to understand how neighborhood environments shape health, safety and opportunity, enabling social workers to identify inequities, target resources and develop more effective community-level interventions. GeoAI is a new way of studying the social, environmental and legal determinants of health and social justice through the lens of place.

References

ersi (n.d.). GeoAI. ersi ArcGIS . Retrieved from: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/3.6/help/analysis/ai/geoai.htm