In the summer of 2024, we hosted a series of four virtual workshops on Digital Public Health, covering how digital public health affects public health practice, digital health promotion, design thinking in public health, and machine learning.
To view the recordings, please visit our digital public health seminar series page.
Digital Public Health Seminar Series
Session 1
May 22, 2024, 12 – 3 PM PDT
Digital Public Health – What is it, and how does it affect public health practice?
Summary:
The acceleration of digital transformation of public health and society in general has implications for public health practice. “Digital public health” has been used in different ways to describe practice changes in public health that are being made to leverage digital technologies in the field and respond to public health challenges resulting from the broader digital transformation in society. Some of these challenges include escalating misinformation and disinformation amplified through digital media and the role of digital determinants of health on public health outcomes. In this session, participants will have interactive discussions with speakers from BC and Europe who have researched and practiced digital public health. The interactive discussions will enable participants to recognize the role of digital public health in modern practice, consider the implications of digital public health in their own practice and consider practical ways to integrate solutions into their current or future public health practice.
Speakers:
- Ihoghosa Iyamu MD, MDICHA, is a PhD Candidate at the School of Population and Public Health (SPPH), UBC and a Graduate Researcher at the clinical prevention services unit of the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC).
- Stefan Buttigieg, MD. works in the Ministry for Health and Active Aging in Malta and is the Vice President of the Digital Health Section of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA).
- Laura Maaß is a PhD candidate at the Leibniz ScienceCampus Digital Public Health Bremen (LSC), Germany, and a member of the steering committee of the European Public Health Association’s Digital Health section. She is a public health practitioner by training.
- Felix Holl PhD, MPH, MSc, is a postdoctoral fellow in Medical Informatics at the DigiHealth Institute, Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences, Germany and a Fellow of the American Medical Informatics Association.
- Elida Sina, PhD, is a post-doctoral researcher at Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology – BIPS, Bremen, Germany
Where?
This seminar was held virtually on Zoom, the recording is available here.
Session 2
June 5, 2024, 12 – 3 PM PDT
Digital Health Promotion
Summary:
The presentation will provide an overview of modern tools for public health promotion including social media, mobile apps, and other online education channels, describe strategies to ensure effective communication using such media for various target populations and explore the risk of misinformation and disinformation. You will interact with speakers from across Canada in this session. This workshop will explore real-world problems with designing health promotion campaigns using digital media and identify strategies to ensure effective public health communication. Participants will gain skills for effective public health promotion and communication using digital technologies.
Speaker/Facilitator
- Mark Gilbert, Associate Professor, School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia and Public health physician at British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. He holds an Applied Public Health Chair related to improving STBBI testing systems.
Panelists
- Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco, Assistant professor, in Learning Innovations at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and member of The Canada-International HIV and Rehabilitation Research Collaborative (CIHRRC).
- Ian Roe, Co-Founder, I Boost Immunity and Kids Boost Immunity, Content Strategist, Communicable Disease and Immunization Service at British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
- Heather Pedersen, Online Sexual Health Manager, Clinical Prevention Services, British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
- Ihoghosa Iyamu, Post Doctoral fellow at the School of Population and Public Health (SPPH), UBC and a Graduate Researcher at the clinical prevention services unit of the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC).
Where?
This seminar was held virtually on Zoom, and the recording is available here.