Public Health Intelligence: A Better Name for Biosecurity

A colleague of mine mentioned the term "public health intelligence". I rather like it. I interpret this term to mean: the practice of intelligence toward the reduction of pandemic risk and the improvement of public and individual health.

Throughout tens and thousands of years of human history, a nation, a tribe, a people were always at high risk of annihilation. This was not due to pandemics. This is due to war. The existential risks of losing in war are ingrained into the minds of mankind. And so convincing those with power of the importance of national security is easy.

The practice of national security is built over tens of thousands of years of learnings and sufferings. The practice of intelligence is as old as civilization.

We do not have to think of health intelligence in traditional espionage terms. A virologist collecting samples from bats is a spy. The adversary is not thinking but it is an adversary nonetheless. The raw intelligence becomes refined by analysts and data scientists into finished intelligence. Even drug development and discovery fits into this framework. It is merely capability development.

Biosecurity fits perfectly in the context of public health intelligence. But why call it this? By using terms and ideas people already understand, it becomes easier for others to conceptualize. Thus it becomes easier to attract resources for this problem. That has always been most of the battle in biosecurity.