Online Journal of Public Health Informatics

A leading peer-reviewed, open access journal dedicated to the dissemination of high-quality research and innovation in the field of public health informatics.

Editor-in-Chief:

Edward K. Mensah PhD, MPhil, Associate Professor Emeritus of Health Economics and Informatics, Health Policy and Administration Division, School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), USA


Impact Factor 1.1

The Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (OJPHI) aims to promote the application of informatics to improve public health research, education and policy. We welcome original research articles, reviews, and perspectives/viewpoints that cover a broad range of topics related to public health informatics.

OJPHI has been published since 2009, but from 2023 onwards it will be published by JMIR Publications. Volumes published prior to 2023 can be found here

All papers are rigorously peer-reviewed, copyedited, and XML-typeset. 

The Online Journal of Public Health Informatics received an inaugural Journal Impact Factor of 1.1 according to the latest release of the Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate, 2025.

The Online Journal of Public Health Informatics is indexed in PubMedPubMed Central (PMC)DOAJ, Sherpa/Romeo, Web of Science Core Collection: Emerging Sources Citation Index and Scopus

Recent Articles

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Population and Public Health Informatics

In 2023, Cayuga County, a rural county in New York State (NYS), developed and published a publicly available, interactive overdose dashboard highlighting demographic, geographic, and time trends in suspected overdoses as well as substance-use related resources in the community. Despite the widespread use of data dashboards in the overdose crisis, there is little evidence to suggest that these dashboards can effectively disseminate data and enable public health data-driven decision making, especially in a rural county. We conducted an evaluation of the Cayuga County Overdose Data Dashboard to fill this knowledge gap.

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Population and Public Health Informatics Policy

One Health is a collaborative approach that can be used to evaluate and enhance the sectors of human health, animal health and environmental health and emphasize their sectoral interconnectedness. Empirical evaluation of the one health performance of a country in the form of an index provides direction for actionable interventions such as targeted funding; prioritized resource allocation; rigorous data management and evidence based-policy decisions, amid other efforts such as public engagement and awareness on disease management; environmental degradation and preparedness towards disease outbreaks and thereby strengthening global health security. Thus, developing a One Health Index (OHI) Calculator for India is a significant step towards evidence based one health governance in the context of low-and middle-income countries.

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Surveillance Methods in Population and Public Health

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019 led governments worldwide to introduce various public health measures, which included restrictions on travel and public gatherings, effectively reducing the spread of the virus and associated mortality rates. In Japan, non-legally binding restrictions on outings effectively curbed infections as in other countries. However, the restrictions impacted lifestyles, including with regard to reduced physical activity, increased frailty, and overeating issues, beyond the effect of preventing the spread of infection. Outing behavior during the pandemic was influenced by various factors such as personality, age, and cultural norms and differed by activity type.

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Public Health Surveillance Practice

In response to the increasing incidence and prevalence of hypertension, Ethiopia has been piloting hypertension control at the primary healthcare level in selected sentinel sites. However, no evaluation has been conducted and its success and failures has not been ascertained.

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Shared Electronic Health Records and Health Information Systems

During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, hospitals encountered numerous challenges that compounded their difficulties. Some of these challenges directly impacted patient care, such as the need to expand capacities, adjust services, and use new knowledge to save lives in an ever-evolving situation. In addition, hospitals faced regulatory challenges.

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Mobile Health Technology and Digital Platforms for Public Health

Although many studies have used smartphone apps to examine alcohol consumption, none have clearly delineated long-term (>1 year) consumption among the general population.

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Review Articles

Clinical risk prediction models integrated into digitized health care informatics systems hold promise for personalized primary prevention and care, a core goal of precision health. Fairness metrics are important tools for evaluating potential disparities across sensitive features, such as sex and race or ethnicity, in the field of prediction modeling. However, fairness metric usage in clinical risk prediction models remains infrequent, sporadic, and rarely empirically evaluated.

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Incidence and Prevalence of Obesity

Currently, the methods used to collect dietary intake data in Ireland are inflexible to the needs of certain populations, who are poorly represented in nutrition and health data as a result. As the Irish population is becoming increasingly diverse, there is an urgent need to understand the habitual food intake and diet quality of multiple population subgroups, including different nationalities and ethnic minorities, in Ireland. Foodbook24 is an existing web-based 24-hour dietary recall tool, which has previously been validated for use within the general Irish adult population. Because of its design, Foodbook24 can facilitate the improved inclusion of dietary intake assessment in Ireland.

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Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

There is a growing gap between surgeon availability and demand for orthopedic services in the United States. This study analyzes the geographic trends of this gap with a Relative Demand Index to guide precision public health interventions such as resource allocation, residency program expansion, and workforce planning to specific regions.

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Surveillance Methods in Population and Public Health

Applying nowcasting methods to partially accrued reportable disease data can help policymakers interpret recent epidemic trends despite data lags and quickly identify and remediate health inequities. During the 2022 mpox outbreak in New York City (NYC), we applied Nowcasting by Bayesian Smoothing (NobBS) to estimate recent cases, citywide and stratified by race or ethnicity (Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and White). However, in real time, it was unclear if estimates were accurate.

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Viewpoints

Microbial diversity is vast, with bacteria playing a crucial role in human health. However, occurrence records (location, date, observer, relation to host) of bacteria associated with humans remain scarce. This lack of information hinders our understanding of human-microbe relationships and disease prevention. Here, we show that existing solutions, such as France's Système d'Information sur le Patrimoine Naturel (SINP) framework, can be used to efficiently collect and manage occurrence data on human-associated bacteria. This user-friendly system allows medical personnel to easily share and access data on bacterial pathogens. By implementing similar national infrastructures and considering human-associated bacteria as biodiversity data, we can significantly improve public health management and research and our understanding of the One Health concept, which emphasizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health.

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