April Global Outreach Committee Meeting

When: Thursday, April 2nd, 10:00 am EDT

Agenda:
1. Expertise database
2. “The Network” newsletter
3. DiSTRIBuTE (influenza surveillance)
4. Webpages
5. Funding opportunity - http://www.fic.nih.gov/recovery/challenge/ict.htm
6. Public Health/Research webinar
7. Any other business
8. Next meeting

Discussion:
1. DiSTRIBuTE - Until now, DiSTRIBuTE has been a US-focused project, but the goal is to expand to international sites in the next phase. By next flu season, hopefully international data should be incorporated. However, there are still some barriers in sharing data that must be resolved. There are 7-8 countries in the European Union that may be interested in participating, and could start the proof-of-concept phase in Europe. Don Olson will be starting an email conversation soon to recruit international participants.

2. NIH Challenge Grant (see link above)- The Committee discussed how the DiSTRIBuTE project might fit within the grant parameters. In the coming weeks Don Olson will look more closely at the grant to assess how the DiSTRIBuTE project could be linked with a low income country, and existing NIH grant participant. The GOC will then be in a stronger position to foster help for the bid.

3. Newsletter - The Committee is getting ready to publish the next issue of its newsletter, "The Network." Several articles have been submitted, and are currently being translated into French and Spanish by some Committee volunteers. The final version will be sent around as a pdf.

4. RC/PHPC Webinar - Duncan Cooper suggested that the GOC submit a few joint abstracts for the May 28 webinar. Some of the Committee members are submitting individual abstracts as well.

5. Survey for Expertise Database - Sheri Lewis has been helping to develop the GO survey. The goal of the survey is to collect information about the type of work that ISDS members are doing in order to build a database.

Next meeting:
Tuesday, June 2nd, 10:00 am EDT