Director of the Center for Health Informatics and iSchool Research Scientist Ian Brooks gave an invited talk at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Kaleidoscope academic conference, which was held on December 4-6 in Atlanta, Georgia. ITU is the United Nations' specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Brooks’ presentation was part of the WHO special panel on the digital transformation of the health sector.
His talk, "The Potential of Unstructured and Big Data for Public Health," examined how community health data can be obtained from sources outside of the health sector.
"In my talk, I discussed these sources, including social media, sales, and cell phone data; their strengths and weaknesses; and the approaches developed to deal with this high volume and unstructured stream and to turn it from an overwhelming deluge into a tool for public health decision making," Brooks said.
Brooks' research interests include public and global health informatics, epidemiology, cyberinfrastructure, data analytics, and One Health. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from Bryn Mawr College, MS in applied and engineering physics from Cornell University, and BSc in biophysics from the University of York in England.