INFT6201-Big Data in Health Promotion

Description:

The final assessment encourages students to expand and deepen their conceptual knowledge of big data within real-world applications (e.g., business, education, health). They do this through discussion of a generic question relating to contemporary practice. In their submission they are required to provide evidence that they have researched the question extensively using information resources such as academic journals, professional press and the popular media. It is expected that they will demonstrate both reflection and analysis related to the questions posed, and produce an articulate and concise response conveying evidence-based understanding of the concepts and topics.

Topics

The topic of this essay is “Big Data and Data Analytics in Health Promotion”. In your essay, we ask you to critically reflect on how the different statistical techniques for predictive analytics discussed in this lecture can be usefully applied to inform decision making and intervention programs in health promotion (e.g., disease prevention, healthy eating, smoking cessation). This includes elaborating on how the different predictive analytics techniques can be used to turn data into information (e.g., assess individual risk factors, opportunities for improved health, diversity of data sources), how they can be implemented using modern IT architectures (e.g., high-performance computing, automated reports, smart watches, mobile biosensors), and common problems that arise when dealing with Big Data (e.g., ethical concerns, adverse effects). 

The essay should provide a motivation for why predictive analytics can provide important insights for health promotion. It should then introduce different predictive analytics techniques and how they can be used to inform decision making in health promotion. This includes a discussion of how these techniques can be implemented and integrated using modern IT Architectures (e.g., highperformance computing to facilitate data analysis, mobile apps for data collection, etc). The essay concludes with a discussion of topics raised in the previous sections and provides a summary of conclusions. The application area of the essay is deliberately chosen to be broad (i.e., health promotion) in order to allow students flexibility. Hence, students can decide whether they would like to write about health promotion in general or, after providing a brief overall motivation of the topic, zoom in on a particular area of health promotion (e.g., smoking cessation, healthy eating). Similarly, students may decide to focus on a particular perspective (e.g, a mobile app provider for improved physical activity; a health promotion organisation; government initiatives, etc).

The essay includes in-text citations throughout your assignment and a list of references at the end (APA Style1 ). If needed, an appendix can be used for providing supplementary material (e.g., images, charts, longer quotes, etc.) that you would like to refer to in your theoretical reasoning and/or when you give examples. The text should be size 12 point Times New Roman or an equivalent font size, with 1.5 line spacing. As a starting point for your discussion, please read the following research paper and then continue with your own research on the given topic by using information resources such as academic journals, professional press, and the popular media.