Detecting and Monitoring Diseases with Big Data DataScience.US

To avoid epidemics such as the 2014 Ebola outbreak, early detection and diagnosing of diseases is critical. Even in the more isolated cases, such as the development of cancer, early diagnosis can save lives. Big data can be used as a versatile tool to assist in the detection, monitoring, and diagnosis of bacterial diseases and cancer. Past efforts to combat outbreaks of disease typically focused on the collection of physical information from laboratory test results and public health records, to create predictive models of how the disease might spread. However, the big data model uses medical information, internet resources, social media, and other sources to enable real time tracking of disease outbreaks.