Big Data and Public Health

Abstract

Healthcare has been recognized as one of the five focus areas for artificial intelligence intervention by the Government of India's think tank NITI Aayog. Many of the AI innovations for healthcare are around clinical and administrative applications, with public health gaining attraction. Participation is restricted to top-performing academic and research institutions with data mostly coming from government and private conglomerates. The faculty with expertise in AI/ML at academic institutions are facing the challenges of access to reliable databases, technical understanding, and support to identify critical research questions, and opportunities for multidisciplinary collaborations. Towards addressing this critical research and development void, this chapter is proposed to pen down the multidisciplinary collaboration strategies for academic-led data products and data-as-a-product to create data bank and embedded analytics, which can facilitate evidence-based, context-specific insights to guide policies and program interventions for local communities at district levels and beyond.