Longitudinal Trend of Public Health Information Technology Presentations

Presentations in the annual conference of the largest public health organization in America, APHA, reveal a longitudinal growth of public health informatics and information technology. The wide variety of IT utilization in public health includes web-based intervention or survey, distance learning, e-health, Geographic Information System (GIS), and so on. The number and content of presentations in APHA's annual meetings, in fact, represent a longitudinal spectrum of public health informatics. This study aims to retrospectively review and analyze the presentations in APHA's 2000~2008 conferences both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Quantitatively, the number of presentations using health informatics and information technology increased more than triple (63 to 260) from 2000 to 2008. The steady growth of IT presentations indicated 11% (25) increase in the past year. Among the attributes of IT presentations, evaluation of web-based intervention appeared the largest growth in number, followed by knowledge dissemination through technology. In 2008, the number of presentation about electronic patient records increased from 4 to 20 and confirms the trend in recent years. Qualitatively, the content analysis indicated 92% of the IT presentations involved in computer usage and 63% used Internet through the past 9 years. Moreover, the subject areas covered most of the formal units of APHA.

The findings suggest the ascending trend of IT application in public health, especially in the evaluation of web-based intervention and knowledge dissemination through technology. Also, public health informatics and information technology have become a needed tool in all areas of public health.