From data to decisions: The vital role of digital epidemiology for strengthening public health.

The exponential growth in academic and digital health data as well as analytical methods has ushered in a new age of digital epidemiology, however, the conceptual foundations, operational boundaries and translation mechanisms of this emerging field still remain insufficiently consolidated. This narrative review critically examines the historical underpinnings of digital epidemiology, tracing the evolution of its definitions and identifying its key challenges and policy implications through the lens of public health dashboards. Digital epidemiology began as simply the use of digital sources of data for epidemiology, but has over the years developed into a much larger domain that incorporates several other related concepts such as infodemiology, infoveillance, participatory surveillance, dashboards, etc. As we foray into this new domain, it is essential to confront the persisting challenges related to data quality, bias, representativeness, ethics and governance that are inherent in digital epidemiology. At the same time, the expanding role of public health dashboards within this field and key emerging innovations such as artificial intelligence and large language models need to be taken into account keeping in mind the risks of automation and need for evaluation framework. By framing dashboards as the operational nerve centre of digital epidemiology, this study provides a unified conceptual foundation for advancing the field of digital epidemiology towards sustainable, equitable and evidence-backed public health action.