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The modern abacus, made by those in China, was a device made of wood with metal reinforcements with 2 beads on the upper deck and 5 beads on the lower deck.
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William Oughtred invented the rectilinear logarithmic slide rule that was used until the 1970s.
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Edmond Halley published an article on life annuities which included tables to help with predicting life expectancy. This work allowed the British government to sell life insurance and helped pave the way for analyzing public health data.
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The United States Public Health Service was founded in an effort to treat sick seamen.
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Dr. Edwin Chadwick became the secretary of the Poor Law Commission and was a leader in the sanitation movement who also proposed the formation of the Bureau of Medical Statistics.
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William Farr, coined as one of the founders of medical statistics, collected information on births, deaths, and marriages, to learn about environmental effects, including the outbreak of cholera, on health in the UK.
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Lemuel Shattuck put out a report on the sanitary commission of Massachusetts that recommended the formation of state and local health boards.
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For the first time in the United States, Massachusetts starting to infectious disease reporting by using a postcard-based reporting system.
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Herman Hollerith invented the electric tabulating system which used electrical connections to record information. Data was punched in specific locations on a card.
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The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), coined one of the first general-purpose computers, was introduced. It weighed 30 tons and contained 18,000 vacuum tubes.
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The Communicable Disease Center (CDC), now named the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was founded as a governmental agency to investigate and prevent disease in the US.
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The National Center for Health Statistics was established as the principal agency of the US Federal Statistical System for all statistical information related towards improving the health of the US population.
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MUMPS, Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System, was a general programming language developed, used as a medical referencing language among other things, and is the backbone of the US Veterans Administration healthcare system.
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An online version called MEDLINE (MEDLARS Online) was launched to allow access from remote libraries. This allowed public health research to be conducted from any location through the use of literature in the many databases available on MEDLINE.
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The American Medical Informatics Association formed to improve health through informatics education, science, and practice, and also focuses on public health informatics in addition to other informatics areas.
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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was signed into law that protects individuals medical information from unauthorized use.
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The CDC launched National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS) to integrate public health surveillance with case reporting. New feeds were built to increase transmission.
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The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was signed into law as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in an effort to increase adoption of health IT while improving the health of the public.
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The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law which kickstarted healthcare insurance reform and also put a strong focus on preventive care and the formation of partnerships with public health agencies.
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In the early 2010s, mHealth (mobile health) has seen a significant surge in which mobile devices are being used in many aspects of public health to acquire data and information surrounding different health problems.
