Twenty fellows graduated from the Informatics and Data Science for Health (IDASH) programme set up to address a global shortage of skilled professionals in the field. WHO, the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Office of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the University of Washington’s International Training and Education Center for Health, launched the IDASH fellowship programme in 2023 to improve public health informatics and data science practices and to address the need for robust and integrated electronic data systems to guide public health action in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fellowship programme’s initial cohort from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, completed a year of training, exploring data analysis and visualization, disease surveillance platforms, and disease reporting systems in the context of Europe and central Asia.
“The fellowship provided a nice opportunity to connect IT [information technology] professionals and epidemiologists or public health specialists. It gave us a platform to better understand each other. This type of programme will be an advantage in our future projects related to data science and digitalization,” said Zhanibek Yerubayev, Director of the Public Health Emergency Operations Center at the National Center of Public Health in Kazakhstan.
A need for public health informatics professionals
Public health informatics is an important and unique branch of the health informatics domain. The programme defines it as “the systematic application of information, computer science, and technology in areas of public health (surveillance, prevention, preparedness, and health promotion) to capture, manage, analyse, disseminate, and use information to improve population-level health outcomes”.
Launched in Georgia in April 2023, this training targets mid- to senior-level technical, analytical and public health staff working at a national level in public health informatics or data science, including epidemiologists, statisticians, data analysts and IT experts.
The programme emphasizes practical experience and includes a special project which is integral to graduation requirements. In this final project, the fellows apply their new skills and knowledge to real-life scenarios. The next cohort is beginning the programme in May 2024, including fellows from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
Leveraging digital solutions for better health
This IDASH initiative responds to the significant challenges WHO and public health authorities face in advancing universal health coverage, safeguarding people during emergencies and enhancing health and well-being for all. The fellowship recognizes the power of leveraging digital solutions to enhance health systems and reduce health inequalities.
Through this collaboration, WHO/Europe aims to support countries to better govern digital transformation in the health sector and advance digital health literacy, a key objective of the Regional Digital Health Action Plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030.
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