Human-Centered Data Science & Precision Public Health: From Predictive Algorithms in Kenya to the Global COVID-19 Response

Among the great crises of our time are calamities both ancient and familiar: that childbirth remains the most dangerous day of many women’s lives, that too many infants die gasping for breath, that the place where good help can be found is too far to walk. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown global health challenges into sharp relief and the need for timely information is acute, yet it remains unclear how to make the promise of tech and data a reality for disconnected and hard-to-reach communities around the world.  

In this talk, Medic Mobile co-founder Isaac Holeman will introduce a promising approach to data-driven community health, and discuss emerging opportunities for the meaningful practice of human-centered data science and precision public health. He will also discuss the promise of open-source communities in digital health, and what you can do to get involved in using tech and data to support the global response to COVID-19.

Bio: Isaac Holeman is a Clinical Assistant Professor whose research concerns digital health, human-centered design, and global health equity. About a decade ago, he co-founded a non-profit organization called Medic Mobile to advance health and human flourishing by building open source tech with and for hard-to-reach communities. Today, Medic Mobile serves as technical steward of the Community Health Toolkit open source project, and supports more than 27,000 health workers who provide care for roughly 15 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.