Modernizing Our Nation's Public Health Information System: Toward an Integrated Approach
An Integrated Approach
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Report Publish Date: September 2021
This journal article summarizes a Public Health Informatics Institute report on how to strengthen U.S. public health information systems in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Primary Takeaways
The authors say that to systematically create public health information systems that work to prevent disease and death, we need leadership from the top down and the bottom up, openness to change, innovation, technical expertise among public health practitioners, an adequate and capable workforce, money, and data systems and standards.
Overview and Objectives
“[P]ublic health suffers from the lack of a sufficiently funded, well-coordinated, and methodically organized approach to guiding, building, and maintaining the information systems it needs to accomplish multijurisdictional health challenges,” the authors say.
They wanted to describe the factors needed and steps that can be taken to build a better information infrastructure for public health.
Hypothesis or Approach
The authors summarize their report on strengthening U.S. public health information systems, whose vulnerabilities were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
How This Influences Change
“The public health system faces an unprecedented opportunity to design and develop a forward-looking, integrated, unified, and uniform approach to managing information,” the authors say.
Research: Go Deeper
Public health is an information business. This maxim is most recently and dramatically evident in how all levels of the public health system require information to understand and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, information is central to the fight against other public health threats and emergencies and to improving health equity.
Unfortunately, public health suffers from the lack of a sufficiently funded, well-coordinated, and methodically organized approach to guiding, building, and maintaining the information systems it needs to accomplish multijurisdictional health challenges. As the COVID-19 pandemic painfully demonstrated, lack of timely and accurate information compounded the challenges and increased the difficulty of an effective public health system response. Furthermore, progress on health equity will require more complete, granular, multidomain (ie, justice, child welfare, transportation, etc), and timely data, thereby allowing for useful insights into both health and social determinants of health.
The authors summarize the key findings and recommendations of a recent report from the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation designed to capture the present opportunity to strengthen the public health system in preparation for whatever the future may hold. In addition, we add our own insights based on decades of experience in public health informatics and capacity building.
Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, September/October 2021. DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001400
Research Team
The study and report were conducted and created by the following people.
- Vivian Singletary
- Chesley L. Richards Jr
- David A. Ross
- Patrick O’Carroll
- Edward L. Baker
Additional Research to Explore
Advancing Collective Wellbeing
Protecting Health and Equity in the Face of Climate Change
