ABSTRACT
In an era of emerging big data sources, it is important that tools and methods that are used to model and understand these data are robust and reproducible. This chapter will explore how an existing spatial microsimulation method can accommodate big open data to create a synthetic population of the 57 million population of England and Wales. This population will be available at a small area population scale of typically seven thousand individuals. Both these data and the software used are open and as such generation of this population will be wholly reproducible and extendable by interested readers. We will validate the synthetic population using a measure of self-rated general health. Future applications for this population will be explored and include, but are not limited to provision of health services and the better understanding consumer behaviour.
