Editorial: Advancing public health through generative artificial intelligence: a focus on digital well-being and the economy of attention
Abstract
The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping the foundations of public health, not only by enhancing analytical capabilities and service delivery, but also by transforming how individuals engage with information, healthcare systems, and their own well-being. The contributions in this special issue collectively demonstrate that AI is no longer a peripheral tool; it is becoming an infrastructural component of contemporary public health. At the same time, they reveal a critical tension: while AI expands opportunities for personalization, efficiency, and prediction, it also introduces new behavioral, ethical, and systemic challenges that must be addressed to ensure equitable and sustainable health outcomes.A first set of contributions highlights the role of AI in strengthening public health systems and resilience. Empirical evidence shows that AI technologies can significantly enhance urban public health resilience by improving resource allocation, response efficiency, and cross-regional collaboration, although their benefits remain unevenly distributed due to disparities in technological capacity https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/publichealth/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1506930/full. Complementing this systems-level perspective, the systematic review of AI-driven early warning systems demonstrates how machine learning and natural language processing enable earlier detection of infectious disease outbreaks through the integration of…
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