Ian Brooks, iSchool research scientist and director of the Center for Health Informatics (CHI), gave a keynote talk at the West Africa Conference on Digital Public Goods and Cybersecurity, which was held on May 9-10 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The conference focused on bridging the gender gap in digital public goods and cybersecurity spaces in Africa.
In his keynote, "Information Systems for Health and the Digital Transformation of Healthcare," Brooks discussed CHI's work with the World Health Organization (WHO)/Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on Information Systems for Health (IS4H). The IS4H project seeks to support countries in defining strategies, policies, standards for interoperable and interconnected systems, and best practices in health data management for improving decision-making and well-being. Brooks presented the current status of the IS4H framework and the supporting tools being developed, including the maturity model for assessing national status and COVID fact sheets.
Brooks' research interests include public and global health informatics, epidemiology, cyberinfrastructure, data analytics, and One Health. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bryn Mawr College, an MS in applied and engineering physics from Cornell University, and a BSc in biophysics from the University of York in England.