What roles can computers play in the field of public health?

The collection of data on infectious diseases and their spatial and temporal patterns is crucial to public health. National Institutes of Health researchers attempted to do this with pocket PCs and the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Information technology (IT) can play a significant role in helping the infection control practitioner. IT can monitor disease outbreaks and spread and collect the statistics that are necessary to even define the existence of an epidemic (an excess of cases over the expected cases).
Computers can create what-if scenarios or simulations of what would happen to an infectious disease if something else happened (e.g., if air travel increased or decreased, the temperature rose or fell, an adequate or inadequate supply of antiviral drugs existed, or if a vaccine did or did not exist). Computer simulations or models may help public health officials prepare for outbreaks in states, nations, and globally.