Citizen Science Program Presents
Drinking from the Firehose: Infectious Diseases in the Age of Big Data
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
Presented by Annie Hoen
Large, complex and dynamic datasets that reflect real world phenomena--so-called "big data"--are transforming science, government, business and the arts. In a rapidly changing world, big data has the potential to inform solutions to complex problems, but there are many challenges to overcome. Here I will discuss possible applications of big data to the complex and critical problem of infectious disease prevention and control. I will make an argument for the importance of information in understanding and controlling infectious threats to health and review conventional approaches to public health surveillance, preparedness and response for infectious diseases. Next I will discuss recent advances and new ideas for harnessing the power of big data for infectious disease control including applications to real-time surveillance, mapping, and outbreak investigation and the use of data mining, crowd sourcing, remote sensing and genomics. Examples will include specific disease systems such as influenza, dengue, and malaria. Finally, I will talk about challenges such as issues of spatial and temporal scale, computational hurdles and reliability, and comment on the outlook for big data science in infectious disease epidemiology.
Dr. Hoen is an instructor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Department of Community and Family Medicine. She was also an instructor in the Citizen Science program in 2011 and 2012.
For more information, call 845-758-7490, or e-mail [email protected].
Location: Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater