The use of GIS technology has had a big impact in improving the ways in which health related information is acquired, processed, and presented in public health. GIS is used in spatial epidemiology as an important tool to address queries related to distributions and determinants of health and illness in space and time. When multiple data sets are superimposed on each other, GIS helps the public health workers to see the spatial variation, recognize the hotspots and develop appropriate prevention strategies. In its modern form, GIS was applied to public health beginning with cholera map drawn by John Snow in 1854. Today there are numerous GIS applications ranging from disease mapping, resource allocation, to the assessment of environmental health. Directions in GIS include remote sensing, mobile data collection, and the use of artificial intelligent to provide real time analysis and predictive analysis. The above developments help in response to diseases outbreaks that include COVID-19 where GIS was useful in mapping the virus spread and response measures. However, there are challenges to the extensive use of GIS in public health such as data quality, ethical issues in the use of privacy and the problem of the digital divide in restricted access to GIS technologies in low resource settings. Nonetheless, GIS remains evidence of its applicability to the current emerging public health issues such as monitoring and spread of communicable diseases, as well as the effect of hazardous environmental factors. Clearly, with steady improvements in technological growth and interprofessional cooperation, GIS will continue to be a valuable resource in the fight toward establishing health equity as well as in the improvement of decisions made within the realm of public health.