A "big data" approach to HIV epidemiology and prevention.

The recent availability of "big data" from social media and mobile technologies provides promise for development of new tools and methods to address the HIV epidemic. This manuscript presents recent work in this growing area of bioinformatics, digital epidemiology, and disease modeling, describes how it can be applied to address HIV prevention, and presents issues that need to be addressed prior to implementing a mobile technology big-data approach to HIV prevention.