Innovative approach

A radical new approach to public health

The School of Technology for Public Health bridges the disconnect between public health and other historically siloed disciplines to create impact at scale. Programs within the school offer unique transdisciplinary coursework that seamlessly weave together core public health competencies with elements of human-centered technology, systems engineering, data science and design.

Training students to be proficient in public health and technology, however, requires more than classroom-based learning. The School of Technology for Public Health exposes students to a constellation of tools and technologies, 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 improve public health systems, outcomes and processes, and how to imagine, implement, and communicate entirely new public health technologies.

Novel diagnostics to rapidly deliver accurate results and reduce preventable deaths

Wastewater-based epidemiology to detect threats early

Biosensors and wearables to promote health behavior and literacy

Smartphone apps to deliver just-in-time interventions

Remote monitoring equipment to prevent hospital readmissions

Geospatial technologies to visualize and better understand health metrics

Rebuilding a public health system through a new type of health care 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, forget. As a result, at the best of times public health is invisible, and at the worst, it is ineffectual.

Technology has the potential to modernize and innovate public health infrastructure in the 21st century, but technology alone cannot create the transformative change we need; this will take a new type of health professional, one who is trained to combine health systems engineering thinking with design and deep knowledge in public health.

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

Digitally fluent and technology first

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

The School of Technology for Public Health at ASU is producing public health innovators by training them to work alongside communities in trusted ways to cocreate accessible, equitable technologies with potential to improve health at scale.