Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO)

The overarching goal of public health informatics is to apply computer science and information technology to promote health and minimize disease and injury at the population level. Public health informatics uses data from surveys, vital statistics, hospital and clinical statistics, private and public data sources, and government data sources for analysis in improving population health.

Key concepts of public health informatics include:

• Data collection
• Storage
• Retrieval

Using the required readings and websites for this week, respond to the following:

• Describe the most significant milestone(s) in the history of public health informatics.
• Refer to the CDC and WHO websites and state the similarities and differences between the types of public health data available with both these organizations.
• Explain the different kinds of statistics and data available with the CDC and WHO. In addition, explain the various methods of research that they use.
• Explain some of the major roadblocks that the field of public health informatics has encountered during the course of its development.
• Describe the most salient issues facing the field of public health informatics today.
• List and describe the various web-based data query programs that are available for different states, including your own.