Toward A More Precise Public Health Strategy in the Battle Against  COVID-19

COVID-19 is one of the greatest public health challenges ever to face United States with cases in excess of 5,000,000. New data suggest that more targeted interventions, springing from the nascent discipline of precision public health, may be better suited to halting the spread of the disease. Using data from traditional and emerging sources, such as cellphone, fitness trackers, and GIS, precision public health targets focuses interventions on time, person, and place, while focusing on reducing health disparities. interventions for populations by person, place, and time, in part with a focus on reducing health disparities.

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to test precision public health strategies and represents the next step in the overall evolution of the discipline of public health. Future research and evaluation will be necessary to validate and test emerging data sources and methods commonly utilized in precision public health. Find out more here.

(Source: Rasmussen SA, Khoury MJ, del Rio C. Precision Public Health as a Key Tool in the COVID-19 Response. JAMA. Published online August 12, 2020)