Ethics and Epistemology in Big Data Research.
Biomedical innovation and translation are increasingly emphasizing research using "big data." The hope is that big data methods will both speed up research and make its results more applicable to "real-world" patients and health services. While big data research has been embraced by scientists, politicians, industry, and the public, numerous ethical, organizational, and technical/methodological concerns have also been raised. With respect to technical and methodological concerns, there is a view that these will be resolved through sophisticated information technologies, predictive algorithms, and data analysis techniques. While such advances will likely go some way towards resolving technical and methodological issues, we believe that the epistemological issues raised by big data research have important ethical implications and raise questions about the very possibility of big data research achieving its goals.
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Medical Foundation Building (K25), Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia. wendy.lipworth@sydney.edu.au.
Wendy
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0234-657X
W
Lipworth
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Medical Foundation Building (K25), Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
Paul H
PH
Mason
Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Medical Foundation Building (K25), Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.|Haematology Department, Royal North Shore Hospital, Reserve Rd, St Leonards, NSW, 2065, Australia.
Ian
I
Kerridge
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.|Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, CA, USA.|Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford, Stanford, CA, USA.
John P A
JPA
Ioannidis
D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics* / Q000379:methods; D066264:Datasets as Topic / Q000941:ethics*; D032984:Ethics, Research; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D012107:Research Design
Big data; Epistemology; Ethics; Real world data