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Big data and analytics is not the lingo of geeks. Here’s how it can be applied to capture and understand some of the nagging issues that developing nations are grappling with.
A group of research and academic bodies have analysed anonymised call data records to understand the spread of the fever, which, if left unattended, could be fatal.
The study found that mobile phone-based mobility estimates accurately predicted the geographic spread and timing of epidemics in both recently epidemic and emerging locations.
Telenor Research teamed up with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Oxford University, the US Center for Disease Control and the University of Peshawar to analyse the spread of dengue in Pakistan.
The impact of human mobility on the emergence of dengue epidemics in Pakistan analysed the data from over three crore Telenor subscribers as dengue hit the country in 2013.
“Accurate predictive models identifying the changing vulnerability to dengue outbreaks are necessary for epidemic preparedness and containment of the virus. Because mobile phone data are continuously being collected, they could be used to help national control programmes plan in near realtime,” Caroline Buckee, assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard University and the study’s senior author has said.
“Dengue is the fastest-spreading tropical disease in the world, with half the global population now living in at-risk regions, including Asia, the Americas, and Africa,” Kenth Engø-Monsen, senior data scientist at Telenor Research, said in a statement on the study.
“A very large mobile data set gave us a bird’s eye view of the human movement that drives transmission, and will help health authorities in at-risk areas put adequate countermeasures in place in anticipation of an outbreak,” the data scientist said.
“The maps and tools we have created have a direct application to future dengue containment and epidemic preparedness and can also be applied to other infectious diseases,” Engø-Monsen said.
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