Report by Hannah Chafetz, Adam Zable, Sara Marcucci, Christopher Rosselot, and Stefaan Verhulst: “Most people now generate large amounts of digital data through their everyday activities and interactions – whether commuting, shopping, communicating or searching for things online. These social data sources are increasingly being used in health and wellbeing research around the world. Yet, questions remain around:
- the unique value of social data for health and wellbeing research
- how social data can be integrated into cross-disciplinary health research programs
- how to make social data more accessible to health researchers
This landscape review, commissioned by Wellcome and produced by The GovLab, aims to answer these questions by mapping how social data has been used in health and wellbeing research around the world. This review mainly focuses on the United Kingdom (UK) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This report examines the opportunities and current challenges in this space, to identify areas where greater investment and coordination are needed.
This review was guided by an international advisory board and conducted using several methods including a literature review of over 290 studies, group discussions (referred to as “studios” in the report), interviews and a peer review with 23 experts.
The goal of this report is to raise the profile of social data for health and to inform funders, researchers and practitioners on how to connect new initiatives, reduce duplication and integrate social data more effectively into health research ecosystems worldwide…(More)”.
