LOS ANGELES — More than 200 University of California, Irvine students like Yash Kadakia are learning how wearable devices like blood glucose monitors and smart watches are helping patients and doctors take a more informed approach when it comes to health care.

“I want to go into medicine. But, I know the future is technology,” Kadakia said. “I want to know how technology and medicine can be combined.”

The informatics class is helping students like Kadakia get an inside look into the world of public health informatics and technology, a sector that brings together public health, computer science and data science where workforce demand is expected to grow by about 17% from 2021 to 2031, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For Kadakia, it was the pandemic that made him realize how important this sector is.

“I think all health care professionals, no matter what they do, need to be tech-literate because that is the future. I think even if you look at the recent COVID outbreak we had, all the stats that came with it, all the stats about the vaccinations, all the tracking that happened, that was all because of the field of health informatics,” he said.

Recently, UC Irvine’s Public Health Informatics and Technology Workforce Development Program known as PHIT received a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to train about 300 students in this field. The program is one of only two in California and one of 10 in the nation. PHIT Program Director and professor Kai Zheng said the pandemic made it clear that more people are needed in this industry.

“We don’t really have a really strong workforce even in health care systems to be able to leverage the data captured from electronic health records, for instance, to use that for both clinical care as well as public health purposes,” Zheng said.

It’s an industry that’s inspiring Kadakia to help others once he enters the medical field.

“Hopefully, more public health officials and students get the technical knowledge needed so that they can have the correct demographic info, the correct vaccination info,” he said. ”Because if you have the correct info, you can combine this with the health care practices that are already developed to create the best care possible.”