scholarly journals Prospects and Challenges of Population Health with Online and other Big Data in Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowland Edet ◽  
Bolarinwa Afolabi

Big data analytics offers promises to many health care service challenges and can provide answers to many population health issues. Big data is having a positive impact in almost every sphere of life in more advanced world while developing countries are striving to meet up. Even though healthcare systems in the developed world are recording some breakthroughs due to the application of big data, it is important to research the impact of big data in developing regions of the world, such as Africa and identify its peculiar needs. The purpose of this review was to summarize the challenges faced by big data analytics and the prospects that big data opens in health care services in Africa. The systematic review examined the key research questions to address whether big data applications can improve healthcare service delivery in Africa especially during epidemics or health crises and through the population health system. The paper examined prospects and challenges that are associated with the use of big data and healthcare service in relation to population health needs through influencing factors. In this study, literatures are reviewed to present cases of big data applications in healthcare in Africa and to understand the prospect and challenges of such applications to population health.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marwa Rabe Mohamed Elkmash ◽  
Magdy Gamal Abdel-Kader ◽  
Bassant Badr El Din

Purpose This study aims to investigate and explore the impact of big data analytics (BDA) as a mechanism that could develop the ability to measure customers’ performance. To accomplish the research aim, the theoretical discussion was developed through the combination of the diffusion of innovation theory with the technology acceptance model (TAM) that is less developed for the research field of this study. Design/methodology/approach Empirical data was obtained using Web-based quasi-experiments with 104 Egyptian accounting professionals. Further, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the chi-square goodness-of-fit test were used to analyze data. Findings The empirical results indicate that measuring customers’ performance based on BDA increase the organizations’ ability to analyze the customers’ unstructured data, decrease the cost of customers’ unstructured data analysis, increase the ability to handle the customers’ problems quickly, minimize the time spent to analyze the customers’ data and obtaining the customers’ performance reports and control managers’ bias when they measure customer satisfaction. The study findings supported the accounting professionals’ acceptance of BDA through the TAM elements: the intention to use (R), perceived usefulness (U) and the perceived ease of use (E). Research limitations/implications This study has several limitations that could be addressed in future research. First, this study focuses on customers’ performance measurement (CPM) only and ignores other performance measurements such as employees’ performance measurement and financial performance measurement. Future research can examine these areas. Second, this study conducts a Web-based experiment with Master of Business Administration students as a study’s participants, researchers could conduct a laboratory experiment and report if there are differences. Third, owing to the novelty of the topic, there was a lack of theoretical evidence in developing the study’s hypotheses. Practical implications This study succeeds to provide the much-needed empirical evidence for BDA positive impact in improving CPM efficiency through the proposed framework (i.e. CPM and BDA framework). Furthermore, this study contributes to the improvement of the performance measurement process, thus, the decision-making process with meaningful and proper insights through the capability of collecting and analyzing the customers’ unstructured data. On a practical level, the company could eventually use this study’s results and the new insights to make better decisions and develop its policies. Originality/value This study holds significance as it provides the much-needed empirical evidence for BDA positive impact in improving CPM efficiency. The study findings will contribute to the enhancement of the performance measurement process through the ability of gathering and analyzing the customers’ unstructured data.


2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 24-26
Author(s):  
Shawna Bourne ◽  
Tarun Rihal

Utilizing big data to guide decision-making for environmental health outcomes can provide the next level of health outcome improvements on a population basis. Historical shifts in overall health and longevity came with environmental health interventions such as safe food and water supplies, the treatment of waste and the establishment of standards that have reduced acute illnesses in the population. Big data analysis approaches have the potential to have a similar impact on quality and length of life by analyzing the factors leading to chronic illness in the population, and improving outcomes. Through the use of big data and machine learning, we can learn more about the environmental factors affecting population health. This article presents an opportunity to utilize pre-existing data to explore a novel way of assessing the impact of known health hazards. This is demonstrated by using drinking water test results as a case example. We demonstrate how big data analytics can be used in such a scenario to identify environmental public health risk. This approach is beginning to be used to collect new and better organized data with the intent of improving population health outcomes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Akindele Akinnagbe ◽  
K.Dharini Amitha Peiris ◽  
Oluyemi Akinloye

Big data is having a positive impact in almost every sphere of life, such as in military intelligence, space science, aviation, banking, and health. Big data is a growing force in healthcare. Even though healthcare systems in the developed world are recording some breakthroughs due to the application of big data, it is important to research the impact of big data in developing regions of the world, such as Africa. Healthcare systems in Africa are, in relative terms, behind the rest of the world. Platforms and technologies used to amass big data such as the Internet and mobile phones are already in use in Africa, thereby making big data applications to be emerging. Hence, the key research question we address is whether big data applications can improve healthcare in Africa especially during epidemics and through the public health system. In this study, a literature review is carried out, firstly to present cases of big data applications in healthcare in Africa, and secondly, to explore potential ethical challenges of such applications. This review will provide an update on the application of big data in the health sector in Africa that can be useful for future researchers and health care practitioners in Africa.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis C. Drivas ◽  
Damianos P. Sakas ◽  
Georgios A. Giannakopoulos ◽  
Daphne Kyriaki-Manessi

In the Big Data era, search engine optimization deals with the encapsulation of datasets that are related to website performance in terms of architecture, content curation, and user behavior, with the purpose to convert them into actionable insights and improve visibility and findability on the Web. In this respect, big data analytics expands the opportunities for developing new methodological frameworks that are composed of valid, reliable, and consistent analytics that are practically useful to develop well-informed strategies for organic traffic optimization. In this paper, a novel methodology is implemented in order to increase organic search engine visits based on the impact of multiple SEO factors. In order to achieve this purpose, the authors examined 171 cultural heritage websites and their retrieved data analytics about their performance and user experience inside them. Massive amounts of Web-based collections are included and presented by cultural heritage organizations through their websites. Subsequently, users interact with these collections, producing behavioral analytics in a variety of different data types that come from multiple devices, with high velocity, in large volumes. Nevertheless, prior research efforts indicate that these massive cultural collections are difficult to browse while expressing low visibility and findability in the semantic Web era. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes the computational development of a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that utilizes the generated big cultural data analytics and improves the visibility of cultural heritage websites. One step further, the statistical results of the study are integrated into a predictive model that is composed of two stages. First, a fuzzy cognitive mapping process is generated as an aggregated macro-level descriptive model. Secondly, a micro-level data-driven agent-based model follows up. The purpose of the model is to predict the most effective combinations of factors that achieve enhanced visibility and organic traffic on cultural heritage organizations’ websites. To this end, the study contributes to the knowledge expansion of researchers and practitioners in the big cultural analytics sector with the purpose to implement potential strategies for greater visibility and findability of cultural collections on the Web.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 5605-5612
Author(s):  
A. Kaliappan ◽  
D. Chitra

In today’s world, an immense measure of information in the form of unstructured, semi-structured and unstructured is generated by different sources all over the world in a tremendous amount. Big data is the termed coined to address these enormous amounts of data. One of the major challenges in the health sector is handling a high-volume variety of data generated from diverse sources and utilizing it for the wellbeing of human. Big data analytics is one of technique designed to operate with monstrous measures of information. The impact of big data in healthcare field and utilization of Hadoop system tools for supervising the big data are deliberated in this paper. The big data analytics role and its theoretical and conceptual architecture include the gathering of diverse information’s such as electronic health records, genome database and clinical decisions support systems, text representation in health care industry is investigated in this paper.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh Kumar Singh ◽  
Saurabh Agrawal ◽  
Abhishek Sahu ◽  
Yigit Kazancoglu

PurposeThe proposed article is aimed at exploring the opportunities, challenges and possible outcomes of incorporating big data analytics (BDA) into health-care sector. The purpose of this study is to find the research gaps in the literature and to investigate the scope of incorporating new strategies in the health-care sector for increasing the efficiency of the system.Design/methodology/approachFora state-of-the-art literature review, a systematic literature review has been carried out to find out research gaps in the field of healthcare using big data (BD) applications. A detailed research methodology including material collection, descriptive analysis and categorization is utilized to carry out the literature review.FindingsBD analysis is rapidly being adopted in health-care sector for utilizing precious information available in terms of BD. However, it puts forth certain challenges that need to be focused upon. The article identifies and explains the challenges thoroughly.Research limitations/implicationsThe proposed study will provide useful guidance to the health-care sector professionals for managing health-care system. It will help academicians and physicians for evaluating, improving and benchmarking the health-care strategies through BDA in the health-care sector. One of the limitations of the study is that it is based on literature review and more in-depth studies may be carried out for the generalization of results.Originality/valueThere are certain effective tools available in the market today that are currently being used by both small and large businesses and corporations. One of them is BD, which may be very useful for health-care sector. A comprehensive literature review is carried out for research papers published between 1974 and 2021.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (8) ◽  
pp. 1923-1936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Ferraris ◽  
Alberto Mazzoleni ◽  
Alain Devalle ◽  
Jerome Couturier

Purpose Big data analytics (BDA) guarantees that data may be analysed and categorised into useful information for businesses and transformed into big data related-knowledge and efficient decision-making processes, thereby improving performance. However, the management of the knowledge generated from the BDA as well as its integration and combination with firm knowledge have scarcely been investigated, despite an emergent need of a structured and integrated approach. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Through an empirical analysis based on structural equation modelling with data collected from 88 Italian SMEs, the authors tested if BDA capabilities have a positive impact on firm performances, as well as the mediator effect of knowledge management (KM) on this relationship. Findings The findings of this paper show that firms that developed more BDA capabilities than others, both technological and managerial, increased their performances and that KM orientation plays a significant role in amplifying the effect of BDA capabilities. Originality/value BDA has the potential to change the way firms compete through better understanding, processing, and exploiting of huge amounts of data coming from different internal and external sources and processes. Some managerial and theoretical implications are proposed and discussed in light of the emergence of this new phenomenon.


Author(s):  
Shweta Kumari

n a business enterprise there is an enormous amount of data generated or processed daily through different data points. It is increasing day by day. It is tough to handle it through traditional applications like excel or any other tools. So, big data analytics and environment may be helpful in the current scenario and the situation discussed above. This paper discussed the big data management ways with the impact of computational methodologies. It also covers the applicability domains and areas. It explores the computational methods applicability scenario and their conceptual design based on the previous literature. Machine learning, artificial intelligence and data mining techniques have been discussed for the same environment based on the related study.


2019 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 12-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smys S ◽  
Vijesh joe C

The big data includes the enormous flow of data from variety of applications that does not fit into the traditional data base. They deal with the storing, managing and manipulating of the data acquired from various sources at an alarming rate to gather valuable insights from it. The big data analytics is used provide with the new and better ideas that pave way to the improvising of the business strategies with its broader, deeper insights and frictionless actions that leads to an accurate and reliable systems. The paper proposes the big data analytics for the improving the strategic assets in the health care industry by providing with the better services for the patients, gaining the satisfaction of the patients and enhancing the customer relationship.


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