Grant: Operating Grant: CIHR Summer Institute on Equitable AI for Public Health

The vision of the Artificial Intelligence for Public Health (AI4PH) Summer Institute is to enable participants to apply AI innovations in public health research with a health equity focus. Our goal is to develop, deliver, and disseminate a comprehensive set of resources for teaching how artificial intelligence (AI), including the subfield of machine learning (ML), can be applied to address important public health problems while explicitly prioritizing health equity. Trainees and early-career researchers in public health and computer science disciplines will benefit from these resources delivered online and in-person, initially in Canada and subsequently around the world. This training will produce a highly qualified and equity-informed global network of peers and mentors from multiple disciplines relevant to public health and AI. Participants in the AI4PH Summer Institute will understand the most important problems facing public health agencies and organizations and have the expertise and collaborative network to apply AI methods in concert with established techniques to invent novel and equitable solutions for the prevention and control of critical public health problems with a high level of ethical rigour. Upon successful completion of the institute, we expect AI4PH Summer Institute participants will have the knowledge and skills to: 1) Understand the conceptual underpinnings of AI and related sub-disciplines so that they can articulate why and when these methods should be used; 2) Apply AI methods and interpret results in the context of real-life public health issues; 3) Advance Equity by i) Understanding the concept of 'equity', and ii) applying this understanding of equity throughout the AI research process (problem definition, research design and methods, knowledge translation); and 4) Understand the contributions of different disciplines (e.g., social science, ethics, computational science, public health policy) and methods in public health AI research.