Sunday, April 14, 2019

Big Data and it's predictive power on healthcare

A team in Northeaster University developed a model in which they can analyze flu outbreaks. Using tweeter, this team was able to see what areas and what symptoms were the most common. Over 50 million tweets were used to predict the number of cases. Some other information collected was the areas with the highest density and how contagious it was. This method was used for two flu seasons and was able to track flu cases 6 weeks before other tracking methods(CNN). Some of the advantages of analyzing these data are resource allocation and a better understanding of how to treat the virus (Forbes).
twitter flu model


Big Data can tell us a lot about our human behavior, especially that we like to share information. Obviously, not everyone in the US has a twitter account but US Twitter users are a good sample pool to pick on. This sample is so great because is diverse and correlates with the general population. Using this tool will save so many lives and it will help to understand the behavior of diseases.

Do you guys think big data can predict other diseases?
Are we relying too much on big data?
Are there any outliers that can affect this information? 


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1 comment:

  1. Lelan SimpsonApril 16, 2019 at 12:03 AM

    I think big data can and probably will be able to predict other diseases in the futures especially considering the growth around social media platforms. I think we aren't necessarily relying on Big Data too much but there is a possibility of that being the case when bad actors use big data for the wrong reasons. Great Post!

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