Effectiveness of Predictive Analytics in Precision Public Health in Strengthening Health System for Future Pandemics

Abstract

Background: Several mortality causalities are responsible for millions of deaths yearly and decrease in life expectancy. The covid-19 pandemic has continued to increase these numbers since 2020 its emergence many public health measures have been put in place to flatten the curve. Public health has used data from different source to improve decision and policy making. In this era, precision public health among other developing field of health has shown great potential in strengthening health data systems. However, with predictive analytics been support systems in precision public health there is a need to evaluate the performance of these techniques. Method: A systematic review was conducted between November 2011 and January 2022 using studies from nine at database which included PubMed, TRIP, SCOPUS, and Cochrane. Grey literature and google scholar were searched. Eligible studies were selected using inclusion and exclusion criteria and finding from the included studies were summarized. Result: 17 studies from 11 countries published in English between 2011-2021 were selected demographic, environmental, social, and socio-economic data were gathered by the selected studies. Artificial intelligence with machine learning been the most common, was the major predictive analytics technique used by the research. Communicable and non-communicable diseases, prescription overdose and underdose, neonatal conditions, health disparities, substance abuse and motor vehicle injuries are public health areas in which the techniques were deployed. Discussion and conclusion: Studies in this review reported that predictive analytics techniques are effective and produced reasonably accuracies. Although, there are some limitations such as lack specific definition of sub-population and units of inference, use of one-dimensional data by some studies, some bias that can confound randomization predictive analytics in precision public health is a great call that requires more work for evidence-based foundation for its application.