Precision Public Health Asia Society
Precision Public Health Asia Society is intended to be a focal point for practitioners, academics and students in individual and organisational capacities to convene and advance the state of knowledge and application in precision public health (PPH). The Society will organise activities to promote awareness of PPH, increase capacity regionally and globally and bring together different stakeholders such as governments, technology companies, academics, public health professionals which traditionally do not have a safe platform or ‘sanctuary’ to gather and exchange views candidly and constructively.
Our Projects
Precision Public Health Asia 2023 Conference
Whitepaper: Responsible Data Sharing in Health & Healthcare
Featured Content
Is precision public health the future — or a contradiction?
“Some public-health researchers are embracing data and technology to target small groups with precise health interventions. Others fear that these tactics could fail millions.”
From their offices in a high-rise building in Queens, epidemiologist Sharon Greene and her colleagues watched the COVID-19 pandemic sweep through New York City in April 2020. Using an open-source data-analytics program called SaTScan, her team mapped outbreaks as they unfolded across individual neighbourhoods, almost in real time. This sophisticated approach relied on detailed data from hospitals and laboratories, and showed that the virus wasn’t affecting all New Yorkers equally. That knowledge helped Greene’s team at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to distribute testing resources and protective gear such as masks and gloves to the right places.
It was a different approach from New York City’s typical pandemic response plan, which advised largely blanket policies such as lockdowns and mass testing.