Keynote speaker: Data-informed decision making in public health: Case study in Tainan

Data is an invaluable and persuasive presentation for all sectors concerned. Being data-informed is about striking a balance in which own expertise and understanding of information acts as great a role in the decisions as the information itself. From a public-health standpoint, to promote the data-informed decision making is even more critical in light of rapidly changing environment. In 2015, the worst dengue epidemic seen in a century was experienced in Tainan, a southern city of Taiwan, and resulted in 0.52% death among 22,777 confirmed cases. Our university (NCKU) facilitated the overall strategic design and implementation of local government to manage the further outbreak in strengthening disease surveillance, monitoring medical adverse events, informing transmission models, and tracking patient sentiments and mobility through real-time application of massive data. It effectively improves the predictive model, and lowered the potential risk. Moreover, the challenge also successfully fostered young talents across all disciplinary in the university to identify a brand-new opportunity of complimenting each other's expertise for innovative solution never seen before. It is foreseeable that the data revolution will vastly improve the point-data resolution and timeliness of available epidemiological information. With hybrid systems advancing rather than abandoning traditional surveillance systems, there comes better prospects for achieving more accurate infectious diseases models, including effective forecasts toward emerging or re-emerging mosquito-borne diseases like Zika virus.