Application of Big Data in Digital Epidemiology

Abstract

Epidemiology is the study of dynamics of health and disease in human population. It aims to identify the occurrence, pattern, and etiology of human diseases so that the causes of these diseases can be understood, which in turn will help in preventing their spread. In traditional epidemiology, the data is collected by various public health agencies through various means. Many times, the actual figures vary a lot from the one reported. Sometimes this difference is due to human errors, but most of the time, it is due to intentional underreporting. Big data techniques can be used to analyze this huge amount of data so as to extract useful information from it. The electronic health data is so large and complex that it cannot be processed using traditional software and hardware. It is also not possible to manage this data using traditional data management tools. This data is huge in terms of volume as well as diversity and the speed at which it is being generated. The ability to combine and analyze these different sources of data has huge impact on epidemic tracking.