Abstract

The presentation will discuss the work of the BERTHA research centre. BERTHA aims to assemble, link and analyse Big Data from diverse data sources to make substantive progress in the understanding of spatial life course environmental influences on cancer, cardio-respiratory diseases, diabetes, neurological diseases, allergy, mental health and wellbeing. Data is critical to BERTHA, integrating a multitude of (Big) data sources, from individual health records, biomarkers, mobile personal sensors, social media and official government statistics to better understand how people in Denmark are exposed to environmental and social pathogens, recreating life courses since digital records began in Denmark in 1972. To do this, BERTHA needs also to develop and extend spatial algorithms and tools to mine the data sources. The talk will explore possibilities for research collaboration and student exchange.

Presenter Profile

Professor Clive Sabel is a spatial data scientist working at the Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University. He is Director of The BERTHA Centre, a Big Data initiative to recreate environmental exposures across the life course in an effort to understand environmental impacts of health. His research interests include working with point-pattern data (often residential location) to reveal epidemiological relationships to environmental exposures or patterns in road traffic accidents; building whole life-course exposures to social and environmental sources to, for example, understand wellbeing in urban areas; data mining ‘Big Data’ such as twitter feeds for spatial-temporal trends; or working in the Healthy Cities agenda, sensing and tracking individuals through GPS and environmental and social sensors in smart-phones.