Evaluating Information Technology-enabled Precision Prevention Initiatives in Health and Care

Information technology-enabled precision prevention is a relatively new approach designed to improve population health. It forms an organic development linking principles of optimizing added value from health-related information technology and data systems with clinical aspirations to add longer-term problem prevention to immediate illness treatment. It includes drawing on information technology to identify persons at risk for developing certain conditions and then developing targeted behavioral and psychosocial approaches to modifying the behaviors of individuals or specific groups. We here discuss evaluation challenges associated with information technology-enabled precision prevention approaches to facilitate the development of an empirical evidence base. Challenges associated with measuring the impact of information technology-enabled precision prevention initiatives include considerations surrounding the relevance and fit of external data sources, the accuracy of prediction models, establishing added benefits of preventative activities, measuring pre-post outcomes at individual and population levels, and considerations surrounding cost-benefit analysis. Challenges associated with assessing processes of information technology-enabled precision prevention initiatives include the quality of data used to create underlying data models, exploring processes not necessarily related to each other, evolving social and environmental determinants of health and individual circumstances, the evolving nature of needs and interventions over time, and ethical considerations. If these challenges are attended to in evaluation activities, this will help to ensure that information technology-enabled approaches to precision prevention will have a positive impact on individual and population health.