How Public Health Can Benefit from Mobile Technology

One of the main functions of public health officials is to notify the general public if there are any products that have been contaminated, pandemics that are spreading quickly or actually any risks or potential health risks which they may be facing. Because they are tasked with informing the public if there are any risks whatsoever, it is their duty to make sure the word gets out timely and to the right people who ‘need to know.' This is where technology comes into the picture and based on today's culture, mobile technology is probably the best platform to use.

Why the Emphasis on Mobile Technology?

Those studying for a Masters in Public Health online can tell you that they spend a good deal of their day on their smartphones and also their tablets and notebooks. No matter where they go or what they are doing, they always have access to some kind of mobile device to squeeze in a little study in between activities or while waiting for lunch at the restaurant. The same holds true for most people today. When was the last time you remember being out in public without seeing a majority of people around you either on their smartphones or with one in hand? If you want to reach your family members or your best friend, chances are you will call their mobile number, right? This is why public health officials should pay closer attention to mobile technology.

How Can Public Health Officials Use Mobile Technology?

Here is the aspect of mobile technology that is just coming into its own. Last year Google, the search giant, changed their algorithms to ensure that the mobile user experience didn't suffer. Websites had only a certain length of time to change their format to a responsive design so that when viewing websites, everything was automatically resized to fit the tiny monitors visitors were viewing pages on. Because so many people access the Internet via their smartphones and since Google will not rank sites that aren't mobile friendly, anyone with a Master of Public Health can take advantage of the Internet to create a mobile friendly website that will rank highly for targeted keywords which is how searchers find the information they are looking for. Public health officials can create content that reaches out to the majority of people on the Internet, mobile users, to ensure that the maximum number of people find their official briefings.

What this all boils down to is that it is one of the primary tasks of public health officials to get information out to the public as quickly as possible in the event of a major crisis. What faster way is there than the Internet but this leaves the question of how to reach the three-fourths of the population that happens to be online at any given moment in time? Unless you draw heavily upon the mobile audience you will not have done your job. Mobile technology, therefore, is used to ensure that you reach the majority of people in a minimal amount of time. In an emergency, this could be the only way to save countless lives. That's how mobile technology can benefit public health. Reach the majority of people and reach them quickly. If you can do that, you've done your job.