Media reports of public health breakthroughs from big data have been largely oversold, according to a new study. But don't throw away that data just yet. The authors maintain that the promise of big data can be fulfilled by tweaking existing methodological and reporting standards. In the study, the research team demonstrate this by revising the inner plumbing of the Google Flu Trends (GFT) digital disease surveillance system, which was heavily criticized last year (see here and here) after producing erroneous forecasts.
Finding real value in big data for public health -- ScienceDaily
Journal Reference:
Mauricio Santillana, D. Wendong Zhang, Benjamin M. Althouse, John W. Ayers. What Can Digital Disease Detection Learn from (an External Revision to) Google Flu Trends? American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2014; DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2014.05.020
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
