Over the past century, advances in science and technology have helped reduce the threat from infectious diseases. Advances in genomics, robotics, imaging, geographical information systems, and other areas have changed development of diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics. They have also changed processes such as those for health surveillance interventions to prevent, treat, and control infectious diseases. These innovations range from small, community-based pilot projects to large-scale applications of advanced technologies using cutting-edge data analytics. Specific examples include use of mobile health applications to improve service delivery on the ground and to navigate the continuum of care (see Chapter 4); predictive modeling to inform infectious disease surveillance and outbreak response; and the use of unbiased metagenomics sequencing to counter microbial threats (see Chapter 3). Despite these advances, infectious diseases continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Some important questions must be answered to make the most of the innovations of the past decades. Many lifesaving innovations are not reaching those who need them (Roscigno et al., 2012). Even when they do, change can be slow to take hold because of social and cultural barriers, weak health care and data infrastructure, poor communication, limited regulatory and enforcement capacity, and other problems. Wide and lasting uptake of any intervention depends on community engagement (Roscigno et al., 2012).
