Brighter Bites is a school-based health promotion program that delivers fresh produce and nutrition education to low-income children and their families across six cities in the U.S. This paper provides a perspective on how, despite COVID-19-related school closures, Brighter Bites pivoted rapidly to collaborate with medical and public health institutions to improve health and food literacy among their families. Through these partnerships, Brighter Bites was able to rapidly provide accurate, evidence-based information related to COVID-19 and other social needs, including food, housing, transportation, and access to healthcare, to help fill a needed gap in vulnerable communities.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in medicine have grown considerably in recent years. AI in the forms of Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Expert Systems, Planning and Logistics methods, and Image Processing networks provide great analytical aptitude. While AI methods were first conceptualized for radiology, investigations today are established across all medical specialties. The necessity for proper infrastructure, skilled labor, and access to large, well-organized data sets has kept the majority of medical AI applications in higher-income countries. However, critical technological improvements, such as cloud computing and the near-ubiquity of smartphones, have paved the way for use of medical AI applications in resource-poor areas. Global health initiatives (GHI) have already begun to explore ways to leverage medical AI technologies to detect and mitigate public health inequities. For example, AI tools can help optimize vaccine delivery and community healthcare worker routes, thus enabling limited resources to have a maximal impact. Other promising AI tools have demonstrated an ability to: predict burn healing time from smartphone photos; track regions of socioeconomic disparity combined with environmental trends to predict communicable disease outbreaks; and accurately predict pregnancy complications such as birth asphyxia in low resource settings with limited patient clinical data. In this commentary, we discuss the current state of AI-driven GHI and explore relevant lessons from past technology-centered GHI. Additionally, we propose a conceptual framework to guide the development of sustainable strategies for AI-driven GHI, and we outline areas for future research. Keywords: • Artificial Intelligence • AI Framework • Global Health • Implementation • Sustainability • AI Strategy   Copyright © 2020 Hadley et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ObjectiveTo offer learning opportunities to medical students during the pandemic and address technical challenges for operating room involvement, the Scott Department of Urology at the Baylor College of Medicine designed and evaluated a 2-week virtual elective course.Materials and MethodsA manual for a virtual sub-internship was created by members of the Society of Academic Urologists, structured around core competencies. Our curriculum incorporated the manual to design a virtual experience. The course combined live surgical case streaming, one-on-one didactics, and virtual participation during in-person clinic sessions. The surgical streaming was enabled through a nominal investment of $150 for equipment. A post-course evaluation was distributed to participating students.ResultsThe course evaluation received a 91% response rate from 11 enrolled fourth-year medical students. There was a very high level of satisfaction with the quality of the educational experience (M=5.8 +/-0.4). Open comments on course strengths highlighted the surgical streaming aspect of the experience, and 80% of evaluation respondents reported that one-on-one time with physicians was a strength of the virtual format.ConclusionsOur curriculum effectively engaged medical students during a 2-week virtual urology elective. The surgical video streaming format is unique even among virtual rotations nationwide and may be adapted for any learners within or beyond an institution. Our curriculum provides an example for programs to incorporate these inexpensive streaming techniques and for students to gain exposure in their surgical areas of interest.