Every public health organization begins its AI journey from a different starting point. A communications team may begin by developing guidelines for staff use of generative AI, whereas a local health department is drafting its first policy. Meanwhile, community health workers are considering what these tools mean for their relationships with residents. Executive teams often focus on whether their organization is moving too quickly, or not fast enough.
At the same time, AI features are arriving inside software that organizations already use, often before policies or governance exist. National organizations are starting to disseminate guidance; however, public health leaders must make decisions while evidence and practices are still evolving.
Different Conversations, Similar Questions
Despite their different starting points, organizations are wrestling with similar questions. Where can AI add value? What risks require safeguards and thoughtful governance? How can AI align with organizational values and responsibilities? Through our work, several observations have shaped HRiA’s understanding of AI readiness in public health.
Organizations are not looking for definitive answers about AI. They are seeking the knowledge and organizational capacity needed to make informed decisions as technology evolves. Doing so requires clear policies, governance structures, thoughtfully identified use cases, and deliberate decisions about technology selection, implementation, oversight, and long-term value.
Since 2024, HRiA has partnered with public health organizations across the country to help navigate the challenges surrounding AI through training, facilitation, policy development, organizational readiness and strategic planning, peer learning, and technology implementation planning. The concerns about governance, implementation, and change management are a natural extension of HRiA’s longstanding experience helping organizations strengthen public health infrastructure and navigate complex organizational change.
RESOURCE: Developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policies for Public Health Organizations: A Template and Guidance (shown on right) was developed by Kansas Health Institute, Health Resources in Action, and Wichita State University Community Engagement Institute through CDC-funded public health infrastructure work. The resource helps organizations develop policies, clarify expectations, and establish governance approaches for the responsible use of AI. View the guide.
Observation 1: AI Literacy Is About Judgment
One of the first things we noticed was how little existing AI education reflected the realities of public health practice. Much of the available training focused on how to use AI tools safely and effectively. However, public health practitioners were grappling with broader questions about trust, governance, communications, and policy.
These conversations often returned to a more fundamental question: When should we use AI at all?
This observation informed HRiA’s partnership with the Public Health Communications Collaborative in developing AI with Intention, a five-module course that translates emerging AI guidance into situations public health practitioners encounter in their daily work. Our approach offers frameworks to help public health practitioners define and justify appropriate AI use alongside practices that support the evaluation of an AI system’s capabilities and limitations. The course is offered via asynchronous (on-demand) and live virtual sessions. The live cohort sessions create space for participants to work through organization-specific scenarios with competing priorities or no obvious answer. The on-demand course launched in July 2026. As of October 2026, 513 users have enrolled. The live cohort sessions started in October 2026 with 66 accepted applicants.
Effective use of AI in public health requires more than technical understanding. AI literacy encompasses governance, communications, trust, accountability, policy, and technology. Practitioners must evaluate whether a tool is appropriate for a given task, understand its limitations, and determine the evidence that supports its use.
Observation 2: Practitioners Are Asking Hard Questions
We have yet to facilitate an AI conversation where participants simply wanted reassurance.
Across our work with local and state health departments, national organizations, community partners, and HRiA staff, people consistently raise questions about bias, privacy, transparency, procurement, environmental impacts, and workforce expectations. These conversations help organizations surface assumptions and clarify the problems that AI may help address.
This dynamic was illustrated in recent work with a state health department. HRiA delivered responsible AI training that paired task-level decisions about AI use with broader implications to governance, risk management, public trust, and health equity. These conversations reinforced the importance of examining tradeoffs, challenging assumptions, and evaluating risks before decisions are made. In many cases, the willingness to engage in those conversations is itself a sign of readiness.
Observation 3: Community Perspectives Reveal Blind Spots
Decisions about AI look different depending on where you sit in an organization. Community Health Workers (CHWs) understand this well. Their work depends on relationships, language, culture, credibility, and trust. They see how policies and systems are experienced on the ground, including unintended consequences that may not be visible to organizational leaders.
In partnership with the CHW Center for Research and Evaluation, HRiA developed a bilingual English and Spanish AI training series grounded in the C3 Community Health Worker Core Consensus Roles. Participants examine concrete AI use cases through four questions:
Who benefits? Who decides? Who’s missing? Who pays the cost?
Answers to these questions are as important as considerations about technology, cost, or implementation. Alongside accuracy and efficiency, organizations must recognize how AI technology might affect trust, access, relationships, and existing inequities. Community perspectives reveal impacts that may not emerge through technical reviews or operational planning. They help organizations understand how AI may affect relationships, access, and lived experience.
Observation 4: Peer Learning Accelerates Progress
Many public health organizations are working through similar questions about readiness, implementation, procurement, technology selection, and long-term value. Guidance, policies, and toolkits are important, but organizations also need opportunities to learn from peers as understanding and application develop.
That need has been evident in Practical AI that Works in the Real World: An ECHO Series, which HRiA co-facilitates with the Louisiana Public Health Institute through support from CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant. The program brings public health leaders together to explore readiness, governance, procurement, use cases, and sustainability.
Interest in the series underscores the demand for peer learning. All 150 registration spots were filled quickly, with participants representing 39 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, and the Marshall Islands. Early feedback points to strong interest in real-world case studies, practical tools, and candid conversations about implementation challenges.
Organizations learn as much from one another’s experience as from formal guidance. Peer learning helps translate emerging ideas into practical action.
AI Readiness Is the Ability to Make the Next Decision Well
What matters most is not how quickly an organization adopts technology, but how well it can make informed decisions about technology as conditions change.
Decisions about AI are shaped as much by organizational culture, community relationships, and public trust as they are by the technology itself. A strong foundation for AI use requires people who can evaluate the technology critically, governance that establishes responsibilities and boundaries, processes for weighing benefits and risks, and meaningful involvement from the people whose work and communities will be affected.
How quickly an organization adopts AI tells us very little about its preparedness. What matters is whether people can explain why a tool is being used, assess its risks and benefits, learn from experience, and adjust course when needed.
Public health has always operated in conditions of uncertainty. What AI changes is the context, not the responsibility. Organizations still must weigh evidence, consider consequence, engage communities, and adapt as new information emerges.
AI readiness is not about adopting technology quickly. In practice, it is about building the capacity to make accountable decisions under uncertainty.
How HRiA Supports Responsible AI
We help organizations build the knowledge, governance structures, implementation plans, and processes needed to navigate AI in ways that align with their missions, values, and responsibilities. HRiA’s approach draws on decades of experience in public health, health equity, community engagement, evaluation, and organizational strategy. Those disciplines shape how we approach emerging technology. The questions organizations are confronting about AI are also questions about evidence, power, trust, accountability, and institutional decision-making.
Depending on an organization’s needs, that work may include assessing readiness, identifying priority use cases, evaluating technology options, developing governance structures, building workforce capacity, or facilitating discussions about implementation and risk.
Our work includes:
- Building AI literacy and workforce capacity
- Developing policies, governance structures, and decision-making processes
- Assessing organizational readiness
- Creating strategic plans
- Driving technology assessment and implementation
- Tool assessments, licensing, integrations with existing tools and systems
- Supporting stakeholder engagement, facilitation, peer learning, and community-defined agreements for AI and digital infrastructure
If your organization is deciding where to begin its journey, contact us. We welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation.
Connect with our team.
We partner with nonprofits, health departments, and others on AI-related endeavors. Contact our experienced and trusted team members to learn how we can support you.
