Giving Compass' Take:

• The Rockefeller Foundation reports on precision public health practices, which employs technology and advanced data to help people who have the greatest needs in a community.

• Why isn't this more prevalent? Obstacles include gaps in the availability of health information in different areas of the world and building capacity. But these issues can be overcome with stronger collaboration.

• Here's why we will need more breakthrough ideas to reach the Sustainable Development Goals' health targets.

Imagine a world where we could predict where the deadliest health challenges would occur, with a degree of precision so great that we could intervene before an emergency response were needed. What would you say if I told you this technology already exists — but that the world has yet to democratize it to the benefit of everyone?

This isn’t yesterday’s daydream or tomorrow’s innovation. This is already happening today.

A case in point is Yemen’s ongoing battle with one of the worst cholera outbreaks in the world. Although the waterborne disease is preventable and treatable if action is taken swiftly, Yemen’s cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,500 people since 2017, most of them young children.

Yet amid tragedy in Yemen, there has also been a sign of hope. BBC News and other media reported in August that the country was making important progress controlling cholera using new computer modeling that predicts outbreaks. The models mapped where rainfall would likely be highest and clean water scarcest, and helped health authorities direct health workers and resources to areas at greatest risk.

The speed and scale of impact using this approach was striking. The predictive model gave Yemen several weeks to prepare, and cholera cases were reduced 95 percent over a comparable period the year before.

Read the full article about precision public health by Naveen Rao, MD, at The Rockefeller Foundation.