Radiology and Public Health

Abstract

An article by Mollura et al in this issue of JACR relates how radiologists could join with other specialists, medical informaticists, and researchers to broadly participate in the field of public health. It’s an idea whose time has come. The combination of worldwide terrorism and the ease of travel have made obsolete the old ways of dealing with outbreaks of disease. Now, our best weapon to contain naturally occurring and criminally initiated epidemics is access to early and accurate information. As Mollura and his colleagues relate so well, radiology could play a critical role in keeping our citizenry safe if only we could link the product of our expertise—our radiology reports—to other clinical information and smart systems that could determine patterns of disease occurrence and spread.