Institute for Population and Precision Health (IPPH)

The 2015 U.S. Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) promised a new era of biomedical research and its application in health care. The initiative is enabled by rapid advances in biomedical sciences, including genomics and bioinformatics, as well as the progress in communication, information technologies and data science. Although the original idea of precision medicine implied an enhanced ability to treat a patient given his/her unique set of characteristics the notion has been expanded as ‘precision health’ to encompass broader preventive, diagnostic and population contexts.

The word “precision” in the context of population health can be simply described as improving the ability to prevent disease, promote health and reduce health disparities in populations by: 1) applying emerging methods and technologies for measuring disease, pathogens, exposures, behaviors, and susceptibility in populations; and 2) developing policies and targeted public health programs to improve health. Our ongoing work at the University of Chicago is consistent with national goals and is complementary to the national efforts.

The Institute for Population and Precision Health brings together researchers from multiple academic units across University of Chicago, and provides them with population-based resources to tackle the most challenging biological, behavioral, and economic problems in preventive and population medicine. The University’s excellence across these disciplines provides an interdisciplinary Institute that has the capacity to focus its collective expertise on population and precision health research.