centre for big data research unsw

Research Capability & Technology Portfolio

Big data analytics.

Applying advanced analytics to big data—including the millions of records generated routinely by health services, clinical data captured at the point-of-care, and data generated by the population at large through technologies such as wearable devices and social media—in order to enhance health and wellbeing.

Competitive advantage

• Internationally recognised expertise across the following capability areas:
• Data science, data analytics, biostatistics, epidemiology and bioinformatics
• Ethical, legal and policy frameworks relevant to using health big data
• Secure management, sharing, curation and stewardship of health big data
• Developing and delivering training in health data analytics
• Communicating complex research findings through multiple modalities, including data visualisation, technical reports, plain-English briefings, multimedia products and social media

Bringing together researchers, consumers, clinicians, industry and government to frame relevant research questions, generate research designs that apply to real-world contexts, and commit to implementing the research and its findings.

Successful outcomes

• Analysis of Healthdirect telephone helpline records, to identify whether people followed advice and the outcomes
• Analysis of In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) treatment data to determine chances of success
• Analysis of data for NSW children showing a later school start has clear developmental benefits

Capabilities and facilities

E-Research Institutional Cloud Architecture (ERICA) secure cloud-based platform for research using sensitive microdata.

Our partners

• Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
• Australian Government Department of Health
• Department of Veteran’s Affairs
• Healthdirect Australia
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
• NSW Ministry of Health
• Department of Health and Human Services Victoria
• New Zealand Ministry of Health
• NPS MedicineWise
• Prospection Pty Ltd
• Janssen Pty Ltd

Health Data Science Student Hub

| Master of Science in Health data Science

| Clinical Artificial Intelligence

| Continuous Professional development

The Master of Science in Health Data Science will prepare you to find the right data, unlock hidden insights and use this information to better support clinical care, inform health policy and improve population health. This degree covers the entire pipeline from comprehension of complex health issues through to data wrangling and management, machine learning, data analytics, data modelling and data communication.

At the Centre for Big Data Research in Health (CBDRH) we aim to enhance the health and wellbeing of all, by maximising the productive use of all possible sources of health big data in medical research.

Our master’s degree, graduate diploma and graduate certificate in health data science are pioneering programs that examine data-driven solutions to complex health problems. At UNSW, we’re leading this new approach to healthcare.

Check out the videos below to learn more!

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Innovative big data study sheds light on general practice in Australia

A team of researchers from the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at UNSW Sydney has used big data analytics to explore how general practice in Australia has changed over two decades.

The study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, found that while there has been a move towards bigger GP practices, patient loyalty remains high.

The findings provide valuable new insights, especially given that primary care is an extremely data-poor field of research, says UNSW Professor Louisa Jorm, Director of the Centre for Big Data Research in Health and co-author of the study.

“We were surprised to see that there is very little information out there on general practices in Australia,” she says.

“For example, since the Annual Survey of Divisions ended in 2011, we don’t even know how many GP practices there are in Australia.

“We need data to help drive policy in the primary care system in Australia, and right now up-to-date data is hard to find.”

That’s why the team set out to apply a novel big data analytics approach to a large set of Medicare claims – to learn more about GP practices, the proportion of bulk-billed claims, continuity of care, patient loyalty and patient sharing.

“Network analysis – the approach used in this study – is one of the new and exciting ways we can use big data to better understand features of our health system,” says Professor Jorm.

The researchers analysed millions of Medicare claims from GP consultations during 1994–2014 for a random 10 per cent sample of Australian residents, and used network analysis techniques to identify GP communities.

“We looked at the claims to see when patients were visiting different doctors for their GP services. Where doctors had many patients in common, it’s likely they are sharing the care for these patients in the same medical practice, so we grouped them together as a provider-practice community, or PPC,” says Professor Jorm.

The data show that practice communities have grown over time: the proportion of PPCs with six or more providers increased from 32 per cent in 1994 to 43 per cent in 2014, while that of sole provider PPCs declined from 50 per cent to 39 per cent. The median number of claims per patient per year remained stable over the 21-year study period.

The study also revealed interesting insights into patient loyalty, says Professor Jorm:

“Despite this shift towards much bigger GP practices and fewer solo GPs, we found that patients’ loyalty to their usual GP and usual GP practice is high, and has been stable over the last 20 years.

“Our findings also show that team-based approaches – where patients see multiple GPs within a practice rather than having a single GP – are associated with greater patient loyalty to the practice. This is encouraging for GPs who need to balance work and family commitments.

“This high level of patient loyalty has implications for the design of incentive programs for encouraging quality primary care if their success relies on the patients’ choice of practice.”

The research also found that the proportion of PPCs in which all providers bulk-billed all consultations ranged from 22 per cent in 1994 to 29 per cent in 2014.

“These trends are consistent with the reported drop in the number of bulk-billed claims to a record low in 2003-4, before increasing after bulk-billing incentives were introduced in 2004,” explains Professor Jorm.

Looking ahead, the novel big data approach used in this study will help researchers monitor the features of Australian general practices and their influence on patient care.

“Our findings open up a new toolbox for exploring how patients use health care services. The next step is to explore the implications of the data on patients’ health and health outcomes,” says Professor Jorm.

The study team comprised Dr Bich Tran, Dr Michael Falster and Professor Louisa Jorm from the UNSW Centre for Big Data Research in Health, Dr Peter Straka and Dr Thomas Britz from UNSW Mathematics and Statistics, and Professor Kirsty Douglas from ANU.

The study is available in this week’s MJA ( online ) , and UNSW Professor Jorm is also featured on the accompanying MJA podcast .

Dr Mark Joseph Hanly

Mark is a lecturer and applied social statistician based at the Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on the analysis of large, linked administrative datasets to answer research questions related to the health and social welbeing of populations. Topics of interest include early childhood health and development, health service utilisation, Indigenous health and outcomes for vulnerable populations. As an... view more

Mark is a lecturer and applied social statistician based at the Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on the analysis of large, linked administrative datasets to answer research questions related to the health and social welbeing of populations. Topics of interest include early childhood health and development, health service utilisation, Indigenous health and outcomes for vulnerable populations. As an applied social statistician, he is interested in statistical methods for answering causal questions using observational data;  summarising and modelling complex longitudinal data; and innovative approaches for  visualising data and communicating research. Mark convenes and teaches the course HDAT9700 Statistical Modelling II as part of the MSc in Health Data Science.

Mark joined the Centre for Big Data Research in Health from the University of Bristol, where he completed his PhD in Advanced Quantitative Methods for the Health and Social Sciences. His doctoral research focused on novel approaches to correct for nonresponse bias in large household surveys. He also holds an MSc in Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin and a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics and Statistics from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.  

$50,000 CRE REACH The type and timing of first child protection service contacts in Aboriginal children in New South Wales, 2002-2019 (CIA)

$655,934 National Health and Medical Research Council Ideas Grant (2021) Hospital trajectories for 15 million Australians (CIE)

$50,000 Triple I Clinical Academic Group Seed Grant (2020) Open source modelling tools to support policy decision-making throughout the COVID-19 post-pandemic phase (CIA)

$1,248,388 National Health and Medical Research Council Transforming the health system response to child maltreatment: the need for cross-jurisdictional e-cohorts (CID)

$26,000 Australian Research Data Council Disseminating Research in the 21st Century (CIA)

$30K NSW Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) Commissioned Project Analysis report for the ‘Family is Culture’ review of Aboriginal children in Out-of-Home care in NSW. (CIB)

$40,000 UNSW Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addictions and SPHERE Clinical Academic Group Seed Funding Scheme Neurodevelopmental, physical and mental health consequences of early life adversity: cross-sectoral population data linkage to inform health and social policy. (AI)

$23,685 NSW FACS Commissioned Project Their Futures Matter – Trial Cohort (Children in residential care) (CIB)

$10,849 NSW FACS Commissioned Project Their Futures Matter – Early life pathways and outcomes for children in contact with child protection (CIB)

My Qualifications

• PhD Advanced Quantitative Mehtods, University of Bristol 2015
• MSc Applied Social Research, Trinity College Dublin 2011
• BSc Mathematics and Statistics, National University of Ireland Maynooth 2006
• mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE">CovidR Contest Winner, European R-Users Meeting (2020) mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
• mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE">Datathon winner, National University of Singapore - National University Health System - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Healthcare Artificial Intelligence (AI) Datathon (2018) "Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
• mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE">UNSW Medicine and Teaching and Research, Excellence in the Design and Development of Programs, Courses or Other Initiatives Award (2018) mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">
• mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE">European Survey Research Association, Early career researcher award: runner-up (2013)
• mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"> "Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE">ESRC Advanced Quantitative Methods Studentship £16,590 PA for 3 years (+ Tuition fees) (2011)

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords, areas of supervision.

ILP/Honours/Masters/PhD

Potential supervision areas

• Analysis of linked data
• Causal inference using observational data
• Innovative data communication (interactive dashboards and apps)

My Engagement

Blog posts and articles in the conversation.

Which families delay sending their child to school and why? We crunched the numbers . (The Conversation, April 2019)

Preschool benefits Indigenous children more than other types of preschool care . (The Conversation, December 2020)

Evaluating COVID-19 exit strategies using open-source modelling tools . (The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team Blog Post, August 2020)

Australia must vaccinate 200,000 adults a day to meet October target: new modelling . (The Conversation, February 2021)

Australian vaccine rollout needs all hands on deck after laterst Astra Zeneca news, mass vaccination hubs included . (The Conversation, April 2021)

Using Shiny in Healthcare: Examples from the 2021 Shiny Contest  (R Studio blog, August 2021)

In the media

How big data can change intensive care . (UNSW Newsroom, July 2018)

'A gift of time': Children who start school later fare better, study finds . (Sydney Morning Herald, April 2019)

1 in 4 families delay thier child's school entry -- and older children are more schol-ready: big data study . (UNSW Newsroom, April 2019)

Should kids start school later?  (The Educator magazine, June 2019)

UNSW wins international COVID-19 data science competition . (thesphere.com.au, June 2020)

Dr Mark Hanly talks COVOID R package (eRUM 2020) . (UNSW Newsroom, June 2020)

'What's surprising is the scale of the problem': One in seven children at risk of harm by five years old . (The Sydney Morning Herald, June 2020)

Nurses accuse Commonwealth of slowing vaccine rollout and treating them as handmaidens  (ABC AM, February 2021)

Emailed COVID-19 vaccine certificate part of rollout plan, as Australia gets closer to first vaccinations  (ABC News, February 2021)

Is Australia's goal of vaccinating the entire adult population by October achievable? (The Guardian, February 2021)

Mass vaccination could rescue the snail-paced rollout (The Medical Republic, April 2021)

My Teaching

mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-IE;mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> HDAT9700 Statistical Modelling II . Lead course developer, convenor and lecturer.

Publications

• Journal articles 28
• Conference Papers 4
• Conference Presentations 2
• Conference Abstracts 6
• Preprints 1

ORCID as entered in ROS

Research Activities

Funded by NHMRC Project Grant.

Promoting positive early childhood development is fundamental to improving life opportunities and outcomes for Aboriginal Australians. However, national data show that a significant proportion of Aboriginal children have markers of developmental vulnerability at school entry and this tracks through to poor literacy and numeracy outcomes across all schooling years. We currently lack information about the key drivers of positive early childhood development in Aboriginal children, and the features of local communities and early childhood service…

UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia Telephone +61 2 93851000 Authorised by Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) UNSW CRICOS Provider Code: 00098G ABN: 57 195 873 179

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Casual Academic Talent Pool - Medicine - Centre for Big Data Research in Health

Apply now Job no: 511514 Work type: casual Location: Sydney, NSW Categories: Tutor, Lecturer, Other, Demonstrator

The Centre for Big Data Research in Health within the Faculty of Medicine & Health is seeking expressions of interest from qualified individuals for casual teaching opportunities in the Master of Science in Health Data Science program.

We encourage Expressions of Interest from new and experienced tutors, demonstrators, markers and lecturers who are excited to be a part of an integrated teaching team.

About the role

Your role is to provide casual teaching support to the course convenors. Your duties may include demonstrating in tutorials, workshops or practical classes, marking, and other miscellaneous course related activities.

You will need:

• A degree in statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, data science, or a related discipline, and/or relevant work experience.
• Demonstrated strong interpersonal skills and ability to communicate efficiently with students and course convenors
• Proficiency with software applications commonly used in teaching (e.g. Office 365: Word, Excel, Teams, and learning management systems such as Moodle), as well as software packages (R, Python or SAS)
• Commitment to follow the  UNSW Code of Conduct  which deals with confidentiality, discrimination, health and safety, harassment, etc 
• Willingness to complete Workplace Health & Safety training and other relevant training as required by UNSW before commencing work.

UNSW is committed to evolving a culture that embraces equity and supports a diverse and inclusive community where everyone can participate fairly, in a safe and respectful environment. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and encourage applications from people of diverse gender, sexual orientation, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background, people with disability and those with caring and family responsibilities. UNSW provides workplace adjustments for people with disability, and access to flexible work options for eligible staff.

The University reserves the right not to proceed with any appointment.

Position Description

Advertised: 07 Sep 2022 AUS Eastern Standard Time Applications close:

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Worried your address, birth date or health data is being sold? You should be – and the law isn’t protecting you

Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

Disclosure statement

Katharine Kemp has received funding from the UNSW Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation. She is a Member of the Expert Panel of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, and the Australian Privacy Foundation. The ACCC referred to the joint research of Katharine Kemp and the Consumer Policy Research Centre in this report.

UNSW Sydney provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Australians don’t know and can’t control how data brokers are spreading their personal information. This is the core finding of a newly released report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Consumers wanting to rent a property, get an insurance quote or shop online are not given real choices about whether their personal data is shared for other purposes. This exposes Australians to scams, fraud, manipulation and discrimination.

In fact, many don’t even know what kind of data has been collected about them and shared or sold by data firms and other third parties.

Our privacy laws are due for reform. But Australia’s privacy commissioner should also enforce an existing rule: with very limited exceptions, businesses must not collect information about you from third parties.

What are data brokers?

Data brokers generally make their profits by collecting information about individuals from various sources and sharing this personal data with their many business clients. This can include detailed profiles of a person’s family, health, finances and movements.

Data brokers often have no connection with the individual – you may not even recognise the name of a firm that holds vast amounts of information on you. Some of these data brokers are large multinational companies with billions of dollars in revenue.

Consumer and privacy advocates provided the ACCC with evidence of highly concerning data broker practices. One woman tried to find out how data brokers had got hold of her information after receiving targeted medical advertising.

Although she never discovered how they obtained her data, she found out it included her name, date of birth and contact details. It also included inferences about her, such as her retiree status, having no children, not having “high affluence” and being likely to donate to a charity.

ACCC found another data broker was reportedly creating lists of individuals who may be experiencing vulnerability. The categories included:

• children, teenage girls and teenage boys
• “financially unsavvy” people
• elderly people living alone
• new migrants
• religious minorities
• unemployed people
• people in financial distress
• people experiencing pain or who have visited certain medical facilities.

These are all potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited, for example, by scammers or unscrupulous advertisers.

How do they get this information?

The ACCC notes 74% of Australians are uncomfortable with their personal information being shared or sold.

Nonetheless, data brokers sell and share Australian consumers’ personal information every day. Businesses we deal with – for example, when we buy a car or search for natural remedies on an online marketplace – both buy data about us from data brokers and provide them with more.

The ACCC acknowledges consumers haven’t been given a choice about this.

Attempting to read every privacy term is near impossible. The ACCC referred to a recent study which found it would take consumers over 46 hours a month to read every privacy policy they encounter.

Even if you could read every term, you still wouldn’t get a clear picture. Businesses use vague wording and data descriptions which confuse consumers and have no fixed meaning. These include “pseudonymised information”, “hashed email addresses”, “aggregated information” and “advertising ID”.

Privacy terms are also presented on a “take it or leave it” basis, even for transactions like applying for a rental property or buying insurance.

The ACCC pointed out 41% of Australians feel they have been pressured to use “rent tech” platforms . These platforms collect an increasing range of information with questionable connection to renting.

A first for Australian consumers

This is the first time an Australian regulator has made an in-depth report on the consumer data practices of data brokers, which are generally hidden from consumers. It comes ten years after the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) conducted a similar inquiry into data brokers in the US.

The ACCC report examined the data practices of nine data brokers and other “data firms” operating in Australia. (It added the term “data firms” because some companies sharing data about people argue that they are not data brokers.)

A big difference between the Australian and the US reports is that the FTC is both the consumer watchdog and the privacy regulator . As our competition and consumer watchdog, the ACCC is meant to focus on competition and consumer issues.

We also need our privacy regulator, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), to pay attention to these findings.

There’s a law against that

The ACCC report shows many examples of businesses collecting personal information about us from third parties. For example, you may be a customer of a business that only has your name and email address. But that business can purchase “ data enrichment ” services from a data broker to find out your age range, income range and family situation.

The current Privacy Act includes a principle that organisations must collect personal information only from the individual (you) unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. “Impracticable” means practically impossible. This is the direct collection rule.

Yet there is no reported case of the privacy commissioner enforcing the direct collection rule against a data broker or its business customers. Nor has the OAIC issued any specific guidance in this respect. It should do both.

Time to update our privacy laws

Our privacy law was drafted in 1988, long before this complex web of digital data practices emerged. Privacy laws in places such as California and the European Union provide much stronger protections.

The government has announced it plans to introduce a privacy law reform bill this August.

The ACCC report reinforces the need for vital amendments, including a direct right of action for individuals and a rule requiring dealings in personal information to be “fair and reasonable”.

• Data sharing
• Privacy law
• Data privacy
• Personal data
• consumer data
• Data brokers

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Beware the dangers of data breach fatigue

2024-05-27T08:55:00+10:00

The public are being warned not to ignore ever-increasing data breaches.

Photo: Adobe Stock

UNSW cybersecurity expert Professor Sanjay Jha says companies and the public should remain on high alert in the face of continual cyber attacks.

Cybersecurity expert Professor Sanjay Jha has urged the public to remain vigilant and not become complacent to ever-increasing cyber attacks.

The most recent report relating to data breaches from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)  recorded 483 breaches in the period from July to December 2023. That was up 19 per cent from the six months previous.

Two-thirds (67%) of those breaches were caused by malicious or criminal attacks, with the other third made up of human error (30%) and system faults (3%).

Although 312 of the 483 breaches affected 100 or fewer people worldwide, there were also four separate incidents where 250,000 or more Australians had their data improperly accessed.

Media enquiries

For enquiries about this story and interview requests please contact  Neil Martin.

Email:  [email protected]

Prof. Jha, UNSW Lead of the  Cybersecurity Cooperative Research Centre  (CSCRC), hopes that the public will not start to tune out and ignore such data breaches as they become more and more prevalent – especially given the dangers of not taking steps to protect personal information which may have been compromised.

“I understand that it’s human nature that you start to just get used to certain things, but I think it's important to keep raising awareness about trying to protect your personal information and even if we reach only a small percentage of people who listen, then it's worth it,” he says.

“It’s obviously a big danger if your bank account is compromised, for example, and lots of money is stolen from you.

“But there are other private details you probably don’t want random people to know about – such as your health or medical records, which can also get broken into.”

Data as a commodity

Prof. Jha says that when malicious cyber-attacks on companies and organisations result in breaches, it can take some time for that personal information to make its way to professional hackers or others who try to make money from the stolen data.

“Personal data is a valuable commodity. Even if credentials aren’t stolen, then it can still be sold as marketing information,” he says.

“But if there is a specific piece of identity then that can kick-start cybercrime because it helps bad actors create your profile and maybe use social engineering to try to get the full information they need to log into your banking system or compromise your medical records.

“Even just knowing your mobile phone number and whether you are a male or female can be enough for criminals to start getting to work.

“A lot of this information when it is obtained by a cyber-attack is then sold on the Darkweb and maybe it then gets bought by hackers who are building phishing sites designed to get the additional credentials they need to get into bank accounts and steal money.”

Phishing for personal information

The problem is so widespread that even a cybersecurity expert such as Prof. Jha himself is targeted regularly by those he believes have obtained some of his personal information.

Many of these attempts come via phishing scams to his mobile phone, where fraudulent messages purportedly from large reputable companies are actually being sent by cybercriminals attempting to get even more valuable information such as online banking logins, credit card details or passwords.

But Prof. Jha acknowledges that it’s sometimes hard for the general public to know what communications they can trust.

“Phishing attacks continue. They aren’t stopping and in fact they are getting ever more innovative,” the academic from the School of Computer Science and Engineering says.

“Even I get those types of messages which say something like, ‘This is Coles and your reward points are about to expire’. The cybercriminals know that almost every Australian is buying their groceries from Coles or Woolworths, so they have a good chance of getting your attention.

“People can then fall into the trap of clicking on the link and giving out their information. More and more education is always needed about this, but it’s also hard to know what is real and what is fake.

“I also get legitimate messages from Australia Post when I have a parcel delivery and they send a URL for me to click on. But they use a tiny-URL system which just shows a series of random scrambled numbers and, as a cybersecurity expert, that makes me very afraid to click on a link where I can’t see the full address.

“And that creates a problem because it is the same technology being used for a legitimate purpose, but it’s lost its trustworthiness and should make you wary of clicking.”

Anyone who says they can secure an entire system where no attack is possible is not being very truthful. What we need to do is to ensure we are trying our best to minimise the attacks, and if they happen make sure we are resilient enough to deal with them and recover. Professor Sanjay Jha

Prof. Jha says companies should be doing more to keep personal data safe from hackers, but admits that as information and communications technology systems get more and more complicated, that means that points of weakness are always likely to exist.

And attacks are unlikely to decrease while there is a lucrative market for stolen credentials.

“The problem is that ICT systems are very complex and every day new applications are deployed and new information is stored and exchanged,” he says.

“It is a very dynamic field – and anyone who says they can secure an entire system where no attack is possible is not being very truthful.

“What we need to do is to ensure we are trying our best to minimise the attacks, and if they happen make sure we are resilient enough to deal with them and recover.

“But some systems need to be more secure than others. If you take down the power grid then you could take down the whole country, and the banking system is another.

“I do think that companies in general can do a lot more to protect people’s privacy. If a new system is deployed then do proper testing and check integration with other systems in case it causes a possible vulnerability in terms of security.

“In addition, keep track of any vulnerabilities that are reported. And monitor cyber threat intelligence from reliable sources to check if your system is at risk.

“Another good measure is regularly scanning and sanitizing the system – all of these are protocols that build up strong security.”

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