The dawn of digital public health in Europe: Implications for public health policy and practice

Brian Li Han Wong; Laura Maaß; Alice Vodden; Robin van Kessel; Sebastiano Sorbello; Stefan Buttigieg; Anna Odone; European Public Health Association (EUPHA) Digital Health Section

doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100316

The dawn of digital public health in Europe: Implications for public health policy and practice

Lancet Reg Health Eur. 2022 Mar:14:100316. doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100316. Epub 2022 Feb 3.

Authors

Brian Li Han Wong^{1

2

3

4}, Laura Maaß^{3

5

6}, Alice Vodden^{3

7

8}, Robin van Kessel^{9

10}, Sebastiano Sorbello^{3

11

12}, Stefan Buttigieg^{3

13}, Anna Odone^{3

11

12}; European Public Health Association (EUPHA) Digital Health Section

Affiliations

¹ Secretariat, The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030: Growing up in a digital world, Global Health Centre, The Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.
² Medical Research Council Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL, Department of Population Science and Experimental Medicine, UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, UK.
³ Digital Health Section, European Public Health Association (EUPHA), Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁴ Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), Brussels, Belgium.
⁵ Leibniz Science Campus Digital Public Health Bremen (LSC), Bremen, Germany.
⁶ Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy (socium), Bremen, Germany.
⁷ East London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
⁸ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁹ Department of International Health, Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI), Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
¹⁰ Studio Europa, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
¹¹ Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
¹² School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
¹³ Ministry for Health, Malta.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of digital health technologies and the role of effective surveillance systems. While recent events have accelerated progress towards the expansion of digital public health (DPH), there remains significant untapped potential in harnessing, leveraging, and repurposing digital technologies for public health. There is a particularly growing need for comprehensive action to prepare citizens for DPH, to regulate and effectively evaluate DPH, and adopt DPH strategies as part of health policy and services to optimise health systems improvement. As representatives of the European Public Health Association's (EUPHA) Digital Health Section, we reflect on the current state of DPH, share our understanding at the European level, and determine how the application of DPH has developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also discuss the opportunities, challenges, and implications of the increasing digitalisation of public health in Europe.

Keywords: DPH, Digital public health; Digital health; Digital public health; Digital transformations; EUPHA, European Public Health Association; Europe; GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation; ICT, Information and communications technologies; NHS, National Health Service; PHWF, Public health workforce; Public health; RCT, Randomised control trial; UHC, Universal health coverage; UK, United Kingdom; UN, United Nations; UNICEF/ERACO, United Nations Children’s Fund/Europe and Central Asia Regional Office; WHO, World Health Organization.

Publication types

Review