Today there were quite a few news stories about a new Health Atlas of England and Wales produced by the Small Area Health Statistics Unit at Imperial College.
It shows on a very fine resolution the relative risk for a number of important diseases and environmental factors, adjusted for age, sex, deprivation and small numbers. Some of the patterns have relatively simple explanations (NO2 concentrations high near cities, attributable to traffic and industry), but others are both fascinating and hard to explain.
Relative risk map for malignant melanoma (Environmental Health Atlas for England and Wales under CC license)
For example, for malignant melanoma there is a clear high relative risk in Devon and Cornwall which could be partially explained by the greater hours of sunlight it receives - but why is the south east not similarly affected despite its similar sun exposure? What is the reason for the cluster of high relative risk in Cumbria?
This looks like a great resource for generating hypotheses and testing new analysis methods in spatial statistics.