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Review
. 2018 Aug;27(1):199-206.
doi: 10.1055/s-0038-1667081. Epub 2018 Aug 29.

Public and Population Health Informatics: The Bridging of Big Data to Benefit Communities

Roland Gamache  1   2 , Hadi Kharrazi  1   3 , Jonathan P Weiner  1
Affiliations
Review

Public and Population Health Informatics: The Bridging of Big Data to Benefit Communities

Roland Gamache et al. Yearb Med Inform. 2018 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: To summarize the recent public and population health informatics literature with a focus on the synergistic "bridging" of electronic data to benefit communities and other populations.

Methods: The review was primarily driven by a search of the literature from July 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017. The search included articles indexed in PubMed using subject headings with (MeSH) keywords "public health informatics" and "social determinants of health". The "social determinants of health" search was refined to include articles that contained the keywords "public health", "population health" or "surveillance".

Results: Several categories were observed in the review focusing on public health's socio-technical infrastructure: evaluation of surveillance practices, surveillance methods, interoperable health information infrastructure, mobile health, social media, and population health. Common trends discussing socio-technical infrastructure included big data platforms, social determinants of health, geographical information systems, novel data sources, and new visualization techniques. A common thread connected these categories of workforce, governance, and sustainability: using clinical resources and data to bridge public and population health.

Conclusions: Both medical care providers and public health agencies are increasingly using informatics and big data tools to create and share digital information. The intent of this "bridging" is to proactively identify, monitor, and improve a range of medical, environmental, and social factors relevant to the health of communities. These efforts show a significant growth in a range of population health-centric information exchange and analytics activities.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Overlapping domains related to Public Health, Population Health, and Social Services Informatics
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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