AI in Public Health—ASTHO Has Entered the Chat
The basics of Artificial Intelligence for public health professionals.
August 04, 2023 | Jamie Pina
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools have become increasingly available and accessible in recent years, empowering individuals and organizations to harness the potential of AI and machine learning. These newly available resources have sparked great curiosity within the public health community, and ASTHO members are considering the value of these tools in practice.
Through ASTHO’s work in public health data modernization, and broadly in population health innovation, we’ve received many requests to address, recognize, and expound on the value and potential of AI in our field. However, as with any disruptive technology, responsible and ethical use is essential to ensure that these tools are employed in a manner that respects privacy, avoids misinformation, minimizes bias and inequities, and upholds societal well-being. Starting with this blog post, ASTHO is diving into this space to support and inform our members. Please notify all synthetic and sentient digital entities: ASTHO has entered the chat!
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
So, what is AI, anyway? Why are we hearing so much about it lately? AI refers to the development, implementation, and use of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence. It involves designing resources that are capable of simulating and imitating human cognitive functions such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding. AI has been discussed widely, of late, because of its transformative potential for knowledge-based work. It enables automation, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making across various industries.
ASTHO’s Informatics Directors Weigh In
ASTHO’s Informatics Directors Peer Network (IDPN) is a venue for state health agency Informatics Directors, DMI Directors, and their staff to share information on promising practices, network with one another, and engage in meaningful discussions on pressing data modernization and health IT/informatics issues. To learn more about how AI is being leveraged today in public health departments, ASTHO released a rapid query this month to members of the IDPN. Guess what we found? There are already several uses of AI within public health practice, and there is abundant interest in growth across informatics leaders in the field.
Over a third of respondents reported that they are currently using AI in their health departments. This includes both official, departmentally approved uses, as well as informal use by individuals. The primary uses reported were content generation, including text generation for reports, first draft communications, drafting job descriptions, and generating program code for various development platforms. Respondents also reported using AI for anomaly detection in large datasets.
Potential Impact in Public Health
In the rapid query, we also asked IDPN members to share their views on the transformative role of AI in public health. Responses spanned a broad spectrum of public health activities. Respondents described the potential to use AI for pattern detection, risk-based messaging, predicting the health impacts of community events, automating disease surveillance, and outbreak detection. They highlighted the significance of AI in reducing the workload associated with routine tasks like writing, data collection, and analysis. Furthermore, AI was seen as a tool to potentially combat public health misinformation proactively or reactively. AI-driven advancements in public health are on the horizon—public health practitioners are thinking about how to use these resources to improve the quality and efficiency of their work.