Monday, May 9, 2011

Public Health and Science

There is an enormous gap between the public health community and the science community. Public health is driven by large data sets and averages. Science is moving into the realm of each person being their own universe of 10 trillion cells and 100 trillion microbes. How do we use the rich data we are able to analyze about the individual with health at the community level? We need to benefit from both.


Public health must become better at measuring multiple factors at the same time while understanding that communities are more than the composite of unique individuals factors. Our analysis of communities and public health needs to keep up with what science is teaching us about individualized health and systems.