Innovative approach

The School of Technology for Public Health bridges the disconnect between public health and technology to reimagine systems and infrastructure for the 21st century, addressing fragmentation and accelerating impact at scale. Programs within the school offer unique coursework that seamlessly weaves together intentionally integrated, transdisciplinary learning that combines core public health competencies with elements of human-centered technology design, systems engineering, data science and technology design and development.

Training students to be proficient in public health and technology, however, requires more than classroom-based learning. The School of Technology for Public Health creates students fluent in emerging and existing public health technologies, including AI, digital health tools, geospatial analytics and advanced data systems, and teaches them how to apply these effectively in real-world settings. Through placements with community and cross-sector partners, students explore how existing technologies can be deployed to strengthen public health infrastructure, improve equity and close health gaps. They also learn how to imagine, implement and communicate new public health technologies designed for sustainability and scale.

Rebuilding public health infrastructure through a new kind of leader

COVID-19 illuminated and deepened existing cracks in the foundation of our nation’s public health infrastructure. With prevention underfunded and undervalued, public health in the U.S. is caught in a cycle of panic, fund, neglect and forget. As a result, at the best of times, public health is invisible, and at the worst, it struggles to respond at the speed and scale that modern challenges demand.

Technology has the potential to modernize and strengthen public health systems in the 21st century, but technology alone cannot create the transformative change we need. What’s required is a new kind of public health leader: one who is bilingual in public health and technology, grounded in public service, and trained to design, deploy and scale solutions that strengthen systems and communities.

The School of Technology for Public Health will create new leaders trained to adapt and innovate old systems.

Digitally fluent. Systems-focused. Public-service driven.

Physicians are increasingly at the forefront of health care innovation, from precision medicine to telemedicine, improving care delivery and bringing inventions to market. Technologies that are designed to improve outcomes for individual patients, however, do not automatically translate into effective prevention, intervention and care at the population level.

Public health has the mission; technology supplies the tools. The School of Technology for Public Health at ASU prepares leaders who can bridge this gap, working alongside communities, public health departments, nonprofits and industry partners to co-create accessible, equitable technologies that strengthen infrastructure and improve health at scale.

Part of the ASU Health ecosystem and located within the Phoenix Bioscience Core, the School of Technology for Public Health connects students to cross-disciplinary research, entrepreneurial pathways and real-world system redesign efforts, ensuring that innovation moves from concept to deployment in the communities that need it most.