OBJECTIVES: To summarise current research that takes advantage of "Big Data" in health and biomedical informatics applications. METHODS: Survey of trends in this work, and exploration of literature describing how large-scale structured and unstructured data sources are being used to support applications from clinical decision making and health policy, to drug design and

Routinely recorded health data have evolved from mere by-products of health care delivery or billing into a powerful research tool for studying and improving patient care through clinical epidemiologic research. Big data in the context of epidemiologic research means large interlinkable data sets within a single country or networks of