Students conduct public health surveillance at 2025 Waste Management Phoenix Open
A quiet view of TPC Scottsdale, where the annual Waste Management Open is held. During the span of the tournament, over 500,000 guests will participate in the festivities.
Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons.
In early February, hundreds of thousands of people made their way to Arizona for the 2025 Waste Management Phoenix Open. Hosted during peak cold and flu season, this event makes the perfect grounds for illness to spread almost as quickly as golfers advance to the next tee.
To help with community health efforts, several Arizona State University students, including global health students from ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, participated in hands-on public health surveillance during the Waste Management Open (WMO). Their goal was to collect and analyze data in real-time to help monitor the health of attendees at the event.
These students are part of the Student Outbreak Response Team (SORT), a public health training program in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. SORT is a student outbreak response and disease surveillance team that coordinates with state and local health departments to investigate a variety of diseases.
SORT is led by Megan Jehn, professor and epidemiologist with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Created by Jehn in 2017, the team consists of students, volunteers and staff who are ready to respond to public health emergencies. In this upper-division course, students experience a unique hybrid of service-learning and field epidemiology training to prepare them for careers in public and global health fields.
“In Maricopa County, large-scale events happen year-round, creating a constant need for public health surveillance and emergency preparedness,” said Sita Sudhakar, an undergraduate student studying global health. “It’s one thing to learn about epidemiology in class, but actually being out in the field is a completely different experience.”
The SORT team was stationed at medical tents throughout the WMO where they gathered data from anyone who voluntarily visited the event’s medical stations. This data helps facilitate early detection of outbreaks and other health-related events to enable public health to respond in a timely manner to any health threats. Some common health problems associated with mass gatherings include heat-related illness, drug- or alcohol-related illness, injuries, viral illness, and foodborne illness.
This practice isn’t unique to the WMO. What many may not know is that public health professionals are often actively working behind the scenes at special events and mass gatherings like sporting events, conventions and community-based festivals.
“Public health is often invisible until it isn’t,” said Sudhakar. “Most people attending the event had no idea there was a surveillance system in place, yet this work is a critical part of ensuring that mass gatherings can operate safely.”
Sudhakar said her job during the WMO was to track reported symptoms and input that data so that the team could look at overall health trends during the week. She reported being surprised to see how many heat-related incidents there were even in February.
“Many people assume Arizona’s mild winter temperatures make heat exhaustion unlikely, but with alcohol consumption, prolonged sun exposure and large crowds, it becomes a significant concern.”
The Waste Management Open has historically brought out hundreds of thousands in recent years, with expected attendance this year between 500,000 and 600,000 people. Known for its lively crowds and festival-like atmosphere, the WMO is the best-attended golf tournament in the world and has raised millions of dollars for charities, including the Phoenix Thunderbirds.
“With so many people in one place, even a small health issue can escalate quickly if it goes undetected. Being part of SORT made me realize how much proactive surveillance can make a tangible difference in preventing emergencies,” said Sudhakar.
This firsthand experience at the WMO underscored the critical role of public health in large-scale events, where early intervention and preventative measures can significantly impact community well-being. For students, opportunities like this provide invaluable real-world experience that help refine their technical skills and propel them into careers where they can make meaningful contributions to public health.
“Public health is a vital component to our society, and seeing how we can influence and support healthy behaviors–especially in a community setting–is something that deeply resonates with me,” said Camila Tompkins, a global health PhD candidate in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. “I think it’s essential for all students to experience firsthand how public health plays a role in their daily lives and how we can contribute to positive change.”
Tompkins has been a part of SORT since 2020, starting first as the program manager during the COVID-19 pandemic and since moving into a case investigator supervisor role. She said that the WMO offered a unique opportunity to observe real-world applications of public health.
Since July 2020, SORT has trained over 400 COVID-19 case investigators and completed over 80,000 case investigations. The medical surveillance during the WMO was conducted in partnership with the Maricopa Medical Reserve Corps and the Mayo Clinic.