Dear All-
In the rapidly evolving digital age, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is swiftly transforming every sector of society, academic institutions worldwide, regardless of whether they are *in high-, middle-, or low-income countries*, stand to gain immensely from forging a simple yet powerful bridge between their Public Health (PH) and Computer Science (CS) departments.
Creating interdisciplinary connections between these two fields represents one *of the lowest-hanging fruits not only in academia but also in health systems*: it requires no massive new infrastructure or competitive external grants, and no radical restructuring. Instead, it leverages existing faculty, students, curricula, and geographical proximity to spark mutual learning. Public Health students and faculty can quickly gain practical AI skills while Computer Science counterparts acquire domain knowledge in epidemiology, health policy, global health, health systems, ethics of data use, and the social determinants of health. This exchange enriches both sides, turning abstract technical prowess into a tangible public good and grounding public health practice in cutting-edge computational capabilities.
The central contribution of this manuscript, *“Building bridges between public health and computer science departments in academia to foster artificial intelligence knowledge and skills for the digital age,”
<https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpub...
is a pragmatic, six-step “bridge-building” framework proposed by a *group of public health, health, and computer science academics* to break the divide and build a bridge between PH and CS. It is specifically designed to foster artificial intelligence (AI) collaboration between Public Health (PH) and Computer Science (CS) departments within academic institutions. The *novelty* of this framework lies in its pragmatic, low-barrier “*bridge-building”* approach. employing a reciprocal “*planks from both sides”* metaphor that emphasizes mutual, bidirectional contributions—each discipline builds its own planks — while relying exclusively on existing departmental resources without necessitating major new infrastructure or competitive external grants.
What are you doing regarding this in your institution?
Kind Regards
Seble
Seble Frehywot, MD, MHSA
Professor of Global Health & Health Policy|
Co-Founder, IT for Health and Education System Equity
Dept. of Global Health|Dept. of Health Policy & Management
Milken Institute School of Public Health
The George Washington University
o 202-994-4311 f 202-994-3472
*Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skills to do difficult things easily. –Anonymous*
****Unlike the stomach, the brain does not alert you when it is empty. - Anonymous
*****Kindness is a scarce resource in the world right now, and people are dying every day due to the lack of it. Those of us who have it should liberally share it with humanity- Seble Frehywot*
HIFA profile: Seble Frehywot is Professor of Global Health and Health Policy and Co-Founder IT for Health and Education System Equity at the George Washington University, USA. She has worked in Asia, Africa and the United States in the fields of medicine, public health, international & national health policy analysis, health policy analysis capacity-building, and health services research and program management. Her research and policy analysis focus is on developing countries health workforce and health systems issues with a main focus on Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia Health Human Resource and Health Systems development and strengthening issues. She teaches International Comparative Health Systems course at the GWU. seblelf AT gwu.edu