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Public Health Decision Support Systems

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Public Health Informatics and Information Systems

Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

Abstract

Decision-making by public health leaders requires data, information, and knowledge. Information systems that support transformation of data into information and knowledge, and that inform decision-making processes, are referred to as decision support systems (DSS). There exist a variety of DSS in clinical and public health contexts. For example, clinical DSS aid physicians in diagnosing a patient or prevent the prescribing of a medication that might cause harm. Public health DSS inform population health decisions, such as calculation of vaccination levels in a community or which areas in a community might benefit most from a mobile prevention clinic. The information and communications technologies (ICT) components for clinical and public health DSS are the same, even though they might be deployed in different ways to achieve better outcomes for individuals and populations. This chapter defines the concepts and components of DSS. The chapter also distinguishes between clinical and public health uses of DSS as well as the challenges with implementing DSS in real-world settings.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Brian E. Dixon

  2. Center for Biomedical Informatics, Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Brian E. Dixon

  3. Department of Health Policy and Management, Center for Population Health IT, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Hadi Kharrazi

  4. Public Health Informatics Fellowship Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Sridhar R. Papagari Sangareddy

Authors
  1. Brian E. Dixon
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  2. Hadi Kharrazi
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  3. Sridhar R. Papagari Sangareddy
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brian E. Dixon .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA

    J.A. Magnuson

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Indiana University, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Brian E. Dixon

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Dixon, B.E., Kharrazi, H., Papagari Sangareddy, S.R. (2020). Public Health Decision Support Systems. In: Magnuson, J., Dixon, B. (eds) Public Health Informatics and Information Systems . Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41215-9_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41215-9_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41214-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41215-9

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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