A recent article in nature magazine discusses the importance of a new approach to precision public health. The bibliography is reviewed by the Professors of Medicine of EKPA Dimitrios Paraskevi (Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine) and Thanos Dimopoulos (Rector of EKPA).
During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologist Sharon Green and her colleagues investigated in detail the spread of the virus in New York in April 2020, using an open source data analysis program (SaTScan) that allowed detailed mapping of cases. . Specifically, this approach identified the spread of the virus in real time in every neighborhood of the city. This knowledge helped experts to apply targeted prevention to the most dispersed areas.
This approach is different from the “traditional” pandemic plan, which implements generalized (non-targeted) lockdown measures as well as mass community control.
“Instead of directing a non-targeted mobile unit to an area where there is an explosion, we can direct the mobile unit right in the neighborhood where the explosion is occurring,” she said. Greene. It is the definition of targeted “health” public health.
The technocentric, targeted approach used by Dr. Greene and other epidemiologists for the treatment of COVID-19 are part of a modern science discipline known as precision public health. This approach is a modernization of epidemiology, similar to the way precision medicine has transformed healthcare, says Muin Khoury, director of the Office of Genomics and Public Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The definition of precision public health is broad and varied and includes the pairing of data analysis-based methods, such as sequencing the pathogen genome to detect outbreaks and collecting different types of data on harmful environmental reports. It also includes the ambitious plan of targeted interventions for people at greatest risk or with the greatest need for intervention.
In contrast, other scientists worry that the “precision” approach may distract us from traditional public health tactics. Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist and dean at Boston University School of Public Health, believes that while it sounds promising, it’s too good to be true. “We are all looking for the silver globe, but it just doesn’t exist,” he says. “I’m concerned that we could focus all our energy on technological approaches and not on more fundamental issues that could improve the health of millions,” said Dr Galea.
However, even before the pandemic, many public health departments performed real-time data analyzes to detect outbreaks of infectious diseases.
In addition to monitoring COVID-19 cases, epidemiologists around the world have studied how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread and mutated to help decide which measures are most effective in controlling the spread. For the past 15 years, public health laboratories around the world have been analyzing the sequence of pathogen genomes – which are constantly mutating as they are transmitted between humans – in order to map the spread and assess parameters that will be useful to public health.
Whether or not researchers disagree on the role of traditional public health in relation to new “precision” approaches, both sides agree that public health will continue to play a vital role in the coming decades.
Also according to the opinion of the Greek authors who edited the indexing of the article, public health can benefit significantly from new methods and approaches that have proven to help assess critical parameters for the spread of a pathogen or in general for the treatment of chronic diseases. In any case, the new approaches should not replace the classical methods, but should be used in parallel.
“The goal is to improve the health of the entire population, using all the methods at our disposal, whether we call them precision public health or not,” he said. Khoury.
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