1101: National Public Health Week Day 2 Scientific Advancements

JOHN SHEEHAN:

This is Public Health Review Morning Edition for Tuesday, April 7, 2026. I’m John Sheehan with news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Today is day two of National Public Health Week, and we’ll be discussing scientific advancements, which have always been at the heart of public health, but present new challenges and opportunities as technology evolves. Our guest, ASTHO Chief Medical Officer Dr. Susan Kansagra, will explore how public health can better integrate innovation into everyday practice. From leveraging continuous improvement frameworks like Plan-Do-Study-Act, into building stronger partnerships with academic and research institutions.

SUSAN KANSAGRA:

First, I’ll just start off and say everything we do in public health has been thanks to the advancement of science and technology. And we can think about technology in multiple ways, but I think about everything from how we do newborn screening and how we ensure that we are detecting congenital illness early to how we are responding to communicable disease to how we are preventing diabetes. All of those things are based on the foundations of science and technological advancement. So, we are so fortunate in public health to have some of these foundations that lift up all the work that we do. But it’s interesting going into the future, there’s so many new things emerging on the horizon. So, one that I think about that really has developed over the last decade is genomic surveillance and how we track disease. The way that we are able to now more closely monitor genetic drift of viruses, for example, to monitor when we have outbreaks to be able to better understand how outbreaks may spread. Those things have really helped us evolve as public health and health care in terms of being able to both treat and create, whether it’s medications or vaccines that help combat illness to how we again monitor where outbreaks are going and understand spread better so that we can work with communities to both prevent and respond to outbreaks. So, that’s one really interesting thing that has developed over the last decade. I’ve seen it advance more in how we use in public health, and certainly into the future I think there’s a lot of opportunity. We’re also seeing a lot of discussion now around technology being used to support individual health. That’s a little bit of a different way for us in public health. We do a lot of work in terms of making communities healthy, supporting healthy environments. But it’s interesting that we are seeing a lot of focus on chronic disease prevention in the form of technologies that might be able to help people better manage their blood pressure or better manage their diabetes. And so, how we as public health support the use of these technologies, think about ways that we might be able to integrate how these technologies work with other broader tools that we might have in our tool belt, whether that’s quit lines for our tobacco cessation programs or diabetes prevention programs is also another interesting opportunity for us in public health. And then last, of course, you can’t go far in these conversations without talking about AI and the opportunities there in the future. We’re already seeing interesting ways that the public health community is using AI to support communications and to support the creation and development of materials that they can then use as they talk about different health issues that matter in their communities. But certainly the use of AI and how we look at data, look at large data sets, opportunities there to use that, of course, with appropriate supervision and appropriate monitoring and very intentionally into the future. I think the sky is the limit there, and we will certainly see so much more into the future.

SHEEHAN:

A major hurdle for scientific advancement is public trust. How can the scientific community evolve its communication to remain a trusted source of truth?

KANSAGRA:

Well, I’m so glad in public health we have amazing communications professionals that help us think through how we communicate better with the public and how we also listen better as well. And I think that’s a key component, how we understand what is top of mind for communities, how they think about health issues, and then how we can tailor how we speak about them to meet their interests and needs. And I think that is a lot of opportunities for us in public health to advance how we do that better as well. And so I think about technology not just as technology in terms of products, but technology in the way we do things too and how we advance the way we do things and certainly how we talk and communicate our public health goals and needs is an opportunity for us to think about evolution in that way as well. And so, one of the things certainly that I have seen recently is this idea of how we communicate using trusted local messengers that oftentimes we are not always the best ones to deliver the message. Or let’s say if there is a scientific advancement coming out of a study that sometimes it’s not even the scientist that’s the best one to communicate, but how we talk about some of these things that we have perhaps experienced or have created through our own programs and partnerships. Are there other local messengers that can talk about why that might be important to that community? So, how we leverage some of these networks and relationships. And of course, we see that happening in new ways, both with social media, the idea of, you know, influencers. There [are] other ways that we can go about delivering our message. It’s not always just, you know, putting out a press release, which has been, you know, one way that public health agencies get out their message. So, I think there’s a real evolution in how we communicate and how we should communicate scientific information to the future.

SHEEHAN:

How can public health teams be more intentional about using tools like PDSA cycles to learn from what’s already out there and figure out what new questions they should be asking?

KANSAGRA:

You know, in the same way that we think about how we incorporate scientific advancement, I think, too, common frameworks that we have used for a very long time in public health, like PDSA cycles, Plan-Do-Study-Act. And a key part of that is Study. And so, in some ways, we as public health, if we think about how we intentionally incorporate that type of framework into the programs and that opportunity for that S, the Study, is not just maybe what we might learn, but okay, let’s do a scan and understand what else is out there. Has another state done something and published on it that we can think about how we incorporate? Is there some, you know, novel research that’s being done that might inform how we implement a community program or think about how we communicate a message? So, I think there’s lots of opportunity and actually lots of ways that public health already does think about this. But expanding that, again, thinking about that Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and there’s lots of frameworks, but thinking about that more intentionally in terms of a broader landscape of knowledge that you can use and incorporate to continue to continuously improve your activities is one way that we can support incorporating new advancement and new technologies. You know, I think the other is understanding as you go through your daily work, understanding what questions are important to answer that we might not have the answer to, but if there are questions that are coming up that would help us implement a program better, then how do we document those and then work with partners, like whether it’s our schools of public health or other research institutions to help us answer those questions? Because oftentimes we in public health are not funded to do primary research. We do evaluation, but we don’t really do research. But helping to communicate where those research needs are is another way that we help with that cycle of knowledge creation and continuous improvement in the work that we do.

SHEEHAN:

If you had to issue a call to action for listeners to support scientific advancements in their own states, what would it be?

KANSAGRA:

Yeah, well, that is a great question. And I would say maybe a few things, maybe just not one call. Maybe this is a ‘pick and choose.’ But, you know, think about how you are aware of what is happening around you and what is happening in terms of scientific advancement. And that could be very simple as making sure that you are reading the journal articles, looking at the news articles every day, making and carving out the time, so you can think about how some of those opportunities might relate to the work that you do if you’re seeing things out there. And then think about partnerships. Again, we in public health oftentimes don’t have the opportunity to do primary research, but there’s lots of folks that do, including our schools of public health, other research institutions, academic institutions. So, how we partner to answer questions that we might need answered in public health, help these institutions conduct studies that will matter back to us in public health is a two-way opportunity. And so, taking advantage of those partnerships that we could all be developing on the ground to create this cycle of knowledge generation and incorporation into what we do in public health and use that scientific knowledge to ultimately serve the communities that we work with.

SHEEHAN:

As ASTHO Chief Medical Officer, are there additional thoughts you have related to the importance of National Public Health Week?

KANSAGRA:

Yeah. Ultimately, I will say, you know, National Public Health Week is also just an opportunity to recognize and appreciate the people around you. Oftentimes what we do is under the radar. When public health works well, we know that oftentimes people don’t see what we do, and that’s because we are preventing those outbreaks or we are detecting that disease early. We are working to prevent chronic illness. We are working on those environmental issues that we know can impact our communities, but helping to mitigate the impact. So, we do so many things, and so, I think it’s just a time for us to take stock, appreciate what we’re doing, think about the opportunities, you know, over the next year or two. We know it’s a hard time in public health. You know, times are never easy. There’s always new challenges, but I think it is an opportunity to celebrate the tremendous work that has happened over, you know, this past year since last National Public Health Week and certainly beyond that, but take stock and appreciate some of the advances we’ve made, appreciate the resiliency of public health. Every day I just appreciate how public health agencies and teams are able to continue to focus on the work that matters and the work that makes a difference to the people on the ground, despite some of the challenges that they may face every day. So, it’s just a time to appreciate that and recognize the good work that’s been done.

SHEEHAN:

Dr. Susan Kansagra is ASTHO chief medical officer.

Stronger public health systems build stronger, healthier communities. The Public Health Infrastructure Grant, or PHIG, website is your go-to hub for tools, resources, and real-world stories that showcase how public health agencies are transforming systems, strengthening partnerships, and driving long-term impact. Explore the site and be inspired. The link is in the show notes.

The webinar, “Driving Impact with Flexible Funding,” provides an in-depth walkthrough of the ASTHO report of the same name. Participants will explore how state health agencies can move beyond traditional funding silos to create more agile, high-impact public health initiatives. Through real-world examples and strategic analysis, we will examine the pathways to successfully adopting and expanding flexible funding models in a government setting. Find the link to register in the show notes.

This has been Public Health Review Morning Edition. I’m John Sheehan for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.