Data is shaping the future of healthcare, including ways to improve population or public health. Chronic conditions are costly, but most are preventable. Public health professionals are on the frontlines of efforts nationwide to prevent and manage chronic disease. Their work is also essential to preparing evidence-based responses to future epidemics through in-depth analysis of community health and risk factors.
For professionals ready to take on that work, the online Master of Public Health (MPH) – General program from Eastern Washington University (EWU) offers a rigorous, applied path forward. Built around the data tools and research frameworks that drive real change in communities, the program’s 60-credit-hour curriculum can be completed in as few as 14 months. Its integrated learning model puts theory directly in service of practice, including hands-on experience building a Biostats toolkit for use in actual field research.
Among the most consequential of those research frameworks are clinical trials. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. Clinical trial data is central to understanding how to prevent and address chronic diseases at the population level.
Why Do Public Health Professionals Need Data?
Public health professionals need data because it allows them to identify the root causes of health problems and develop targeted, evidence-based solutions for the communities they serve. For example, they may assist with disease prevention, community health education, and chronic illness prevention or management. They also identify and remove barriers people face in finding affordable food, places to live, and opportunities for fresh air and physical activity.
With data from clinical trials, public health professionals develop and share evidence-based approaches to healthy living across various populations. This relationship is cyclical. Public health professionals use information gained from clinical trials to adjust health promotion and intervention methods, while providing valuable data to researchers conducting further trials.
What Are Clinical Trials? Definitions and Core Concepts in Public Health Research
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a clinical trial is “A research study in which one or more human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes.” Public health research methods center on this kind of rigorous, controlled inquiry to identify what works across different populations and settings.
By rigorously evaluating intervention methods, clinical trials generate the data needed to improve individual and community health. Public health research aims to improve overall population health by identifying risk factors and effective interventions.
How Do Clinical Trials Impact Public Health? From Data to Evidence-based Interventions
Clinical trial data gives public health professionals the evidence they need to design, test and scale evidence-based public health interventions. Professionals use clinical trial findings across several areas of population health to better understand public health demographics. They consider factors including the following:
- Prevalence of population health events (cancer and heart disease)
- Factors that influence population health (environmental, genetic, social and cultural)
- Risk factors for poor outcomes (access to care, social determinants of health, readmissions, missed appointments and medication adherence)
- Mortality risk (suicide and delayed diagnosis)
These factors rarely exist in isolation. Clinical trial data allows professionals to examine how social determinants of health intersect with behavioral and environmental risk factors to shape health outcomes within specific communities. In addition, professionals may develop trials to assess public health needs, develop programs or improve public health policies and education.
What is a Real-world Example of Public Health Research? The “Food Is Medicine” Movement
Clinical trials demonstrate their value most clearly when research findings translate directly into practice — identifying a need, testing an intervention and then measuring whether it works at the population level. The growing “Food Is Medicine” movement offers one of the most compelling recent examples.
Chronic medical conditions account for approximately 90% of the United States’ $4.3 trillion annual health care costs, according to the American Heart Association. Unhealthy diets and food insecurity are among the primary drivers of many chronic conditions, particularly in communities of color and those with low incomes.
In response, public health researchers and health systems have developed clinical trials testing whether providing patients with healthy food as part of their medical care can improve outcomes for conditions like diabetes and hypertension. These trials reflect precisely the kind of evidence-based public health research cycle the field depends on: Identifying a population need through surveillance data, designing an intervention, testing it rigorously and using the results to inform funding recommendations and broader program replication across communities.
Health Equity and Clinical Trials: How Public Health Professionals Can Improve Research
Public health professionals improve clinical trials by advocating for health equity and producing research that reflects the communities those trials aim to serve. Just as clinical trial data informs public health initiatives, public health professionals bring essential perspective to research design.
A 2024 report from the HHS Office of Inspector General found that one-third of NIH-funded clinical trials did not plan to include all racial and ethnic groups, and most completed trials missed their enrollment targets for underrepresented populations. Historically, a lack of diverse trial participants has created gaps in understanding risk factors and effective interventions for underrepresented populations, compounding persistent health disparities.
Developing the skills to conduct and apply inclusive public health research requires comprehensive, advanced training. EWU’s online MPH program prepares students to examine the sociological perspective of healthcare inequities and develop strategies to address them across a broad range of communities.
Learn more about Eastern Washington University’s online MPH – General program.
