Informatics in Public Health
In the contemporary medical world, various definitions of the term informatics are existent. Regardless of the different words used to describe the term, a feature recurring in all definition is the word information. As such, informatics majorly deals with the transfer of information. That said, Magnuson and Fu, (2014) describe informatics in public health as a field that uses information to the most optimal level with the assistance of technology to better the health of individuals and public health. Informatics is of the utmost importance in public health and thus worth analysis. In essence, this paper aims to demonstrate the significance of informatics in public health by bringing to the fore one of its application in this field.
Primarily, among the many uses of informatics in public health, one major application in this field is disease surveillance and prevention. That is the case because public health professionals rely on informatics to pass valuable information about disease outbreaks. Moreover, the data utilized in informatics is vital for offering a clear picture of the distribution of illness in the population (Aziz, 2017). Consequently, based on this information, there is the development of preventive strategies such as traveling bans to endemic areas. Evidently, this is proof enough of the application of informatics in public health.
Concisely, this paper aimed at establishing the definition of informatics and providing evidence of its use in public health. Indeed, from the discussion, it is without a doubt that the informatics is an important competency that all public health professionals must possess for the effective carrying out of their functions. In the absence of such, the operations in this field are at risk of failing. As such, going into the future, public health personnel must keep abreast with this competency for the smooth running of their profession.
References
Aziz, H. A. (2017). A review of the role of public health informatics in healthcare. Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences, 12(1), 78-81.
Magnuson, J. A., & Fu, P. C. (2014). Public health informatics and information systems.
