title: The Importance of Computer Science for Public Health Training: An Opportunity and Call to Action.
abstract: A century ago, the Welch-Rose Report established a public health education system in the United States. Since then, the system has evolved to address emerging health needs and integrate new technologies. Today, personalized health technologies generate large amounts of data. Emerging computer science techniques, such as machine learning, present an opportunity to extract insights from these data that could help identify high-risk individuals and tailor health interventions and recommendations. As these technologies play a larger role in health promotion, collaboration between the public health and technology communities will become the norm. Offering public health trainees coursework in computer science alongside traditional public health disciplines will facilitate this evolution, improving public health's capacity to harness these technologies to improve population health.
authors.affiliation: The Vitality Group New York, NY United States.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6368-0205
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kunkle
authors.affiliation: The Vitality Group New York, NY United States.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4971-8414
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Christie
authors.affiliation: The Vitality Group New York, NY United States.
authors.forename: Derek
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-1424-1457
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yach
authors.affiliation: Detroit Health Department City of Detroit Detroit, MI United States.
authors.forename: Abdulrahman M
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-4809-5630
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: El-Sayed
keywords: chronic disease; computer science; digital health; health technology; machine learning; public health