Big Data Synthesis for Health Policy

Health policies are often driven by information highlighting disparities between countries, regions, or groups of people. As the amount of data grows, scientists must find ways to make sense of it all, highlight the biggest health priorities and locations, and help with effectively allocating resources. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) works with more than 1,600 collaborators from 120 countries to quantify health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors globally. They have begun a new line of geospatial analysis, analyzing the fatal burden of priority diseases in children across developing countries, to inform policies and distribution of resources. As geospatial analysis techniques grow to allow for more granular analysis of health disparities, data must also be geotagged at refined locations and in traditionally neglected areas. Unfortunately, data gaps often appear in areas that are the most resource poor. This session discusses the need to harness the growing world of big data to collect and synthesize useful information in a way that can affect health policy and fulfill the vision that everyone deserves to live a long life in full health.