Public health big data: Do you have the breadth of competencies required to make it useful

This lecture is designed to complement the panel discussion on Big Data usage in public health. The focus is on the competencies and skills an organization will need to be successful deriving, designing, and deploying complex, large volume data systems to meet public health information needs. Often it is thought that we can use traditional skills such as classic statistical data methods or simple database systems to handle large volume and complex heterogeneous data but this falls short due to new challenges. The challenges around the pure technology storage and access to large data volumes, the demand for dealing with structured and unstructured data together, and the fusion of data sources that have never been designed to be used together require investment in new competencies. This discussion will help you understand where competencies are changing for your IT people, your Informaticians, and the practitioners. Its easy to list a bunch of new competencies you have to acquire but often its not so obvious where they should be developed in your staff and how many people are involved. We will take some time to map these competencies with roles or groups of people you will need to work with big data platforms.