23 June 2009

June Public Health Practice Committee Meeting

When: Monday, June 22nd at 12:00 pm EDT

Agenda:
1) Approval of the minutes,
2) ISDS update
3) A brief summary of the recent joint PHPC & Research Committee webinar
4) Ongoing CDC surveys
5) A discussion on current use of advanced surveillance systems to track novel flu A (H1N1) activity and conduct late season flu surveillance
6) The DiSTRIBuTE perspective on this extended influenza season
7) Use of federal stimulus funds to enhance public health preparedness surveillance
8) Next meeting on Monday July 27, 2009: Guest speaker presentation on the ongoing CDC survey of advanced surveillance system usage.

Next Meeting: Monday, July 27th at 12:00 pm EDT.

18 June 2009

June Literature Summaries Now Available

The summaries from the June 18th Literature Review are now available on the ISDS wiki.

Many thanks to Anette Hulth and Gustaf Rydevik for the presentation of their paper "Web Queries as a Source for Syndromic Surveillance." The presentation slides can be found here.

15 June 2009

PDF of "The Network" Now Available

The Spring 2009 issue of the Global Outreach Committee's newsletter, "The Network" is now available in pdf format.

Since newsletter is a public domain document, ISDS members are encouraged to forward it on to colleagues and non-ISDS members.

Finally, the Global Outreach Committee is interested in receiving submissions for the next issue of "The Network." If you would like to contribute a short article that would be of relevance and interest to an international audience, please contact rviola@syndromic.org.

A reminder that the next Global Outreach Committee meeting will be taking place on Thursday, July 30th at 10:00 am EDT.

12 June 2009

ISDS in ScienceInsider

Recently the work of the DiSTRIBuTE project as it relates to H1N1 was featured in an entry of the ScienceInsider blog. The entry includes an interview with Don Olson, the Research Director of ISDS.

Read the post here.

This post was also referenced by two other blogs:
ScienceNOW
Daily Kos

11 June 2009

Articles for June Literature Review

The following is a list of the most recent selections from the ISDS Research Committee PubCrawler search. Several articles concern the recent H1N1 threat.

Please email your input on any selected articles by June 17, 2009 to rviola@syndromic.org. The teleconference to organize these submissions will be on Thursday, June 18 at 10:00 AM EDT.

Special Presentation: Also, scheduled for the second half of this call is a presentation and discussion lead by Anette Hulth of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control on her recent article, “Web Queries as a Source for Syndromic Surveillance.” The first 30 minutes of the call will be spent discussing the month's article summaries, and then Dr. Hulth will make her presentation followed by a discussion, starting promptly at 10:30 EST. You may view her abstract or obtain the full-length article here.

Finally, don't forget to register for the webinar!

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Merl D, Johnson LR, Gramacy RB, Mangel M.
A statistical framework for the adaptive management of epidemiological interventions.
PLoS ONE. 2009 Jun 5;4(6):e5807.

Brammer L, Budd A, Cox N.
Seasonal and pandemic influenza surveillance considerations for constructing multicomponent systems.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2009 Mar;3(2):51-58.

Du P, Feng G, Flatow J, Song J, Holko M, Kibbe WA, Lin SM.
From disease ontology to disease-ontology lite: statistical methods to adapt a general-purpose ontology for the test of gene-ontology associations.
Bioinformatics. 2009 Jun 15;25(12):i63-8.

Yoshida M, Matsui T, Ohkusa Y, Kobayashi J, Ohyama T, Sugawara T, Yasui Y, Tachibana T, Okabe N.
Seasonal influenza surveillance using prescription data for anti-influenza medications.
Jpn J Infect Dis. 2009 May;62(3):233-5.

Sue Huang Q, Lopez LD, McCallum L, Adlam B.
Influenza surveillance and immunisation in New Zealand, 1997-2006.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2008 Jul;2(4):139-45.

Zaraket H, Saito R, Tanabe N, Taniguchi K, Suzuki H.
Association of early annual peak influenza activity with El NiƱo southern oscillation in Japan.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2008 Jul;2(4):127-30.

Thompson WW, Weintraub E, Dhankhar P, Cheng PY, Brammer L, Meltzer MI, Bresee JS, Shay DK.
Estimates of US influenza-associated deaths made using four different methods.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2009 Jan;3(1):37-49.

Hesterberg U, Harris K, Stroud D, Guberti V, Busani L, Pittman M, Piazza V, Cook A, Brown I.
Avian influenza surveillance in wild birds in the European Union in 2006.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2009 Jan;3(1):1-14.

Murray K, Kilborn C, DesVignes-Kendrick M, Koers E, Page V, Selwyn B, Shah U, Palacio H.
Emerging disease syndromic surveillance for Hurricane Katrina evacuees seeking shelter in Houston's Astrodome and Reliant Park Complex.
Public Health Rep. 2009 May-Jun;124(3):364-71.

Jung I, Kulldorff M, Kleinman KP, Yih WK, Platt R.
Using encounters versus episodes in syndromic surveillance.
J Public Health (Oxf). 2009 May 13;. [Epub ahead of print]

Temte JL, Grasmick ME.
Recruiting primary care clinicians for public health and bioterrorism surveillance.
WMJ. 2009 Apr;108(2):104-8.

McVernon J, McCaw CT, Mathews JD.
Model answers or trivial pursuits? The role of mathematical models in influenza pandemic preparedness planning.
Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2007 Mar;1(2):43-54.

Liao YC, Ko CY, Tsai MH, Lee MS, Hsiung CA.
ATIVS: analytical tool for influenza virus surveillance.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2009 May 8;. [Epub ahead of print]

Gallaher WR
Towards a sane and rational approach to management of Influenza H1N1 2009.
Virol J. 2009 May 7;6(1):51.

Shinde V, Bridges CB, Uyeki TM, Shu B, Balish A, Xu X, Lindstrom S, Gubareva LV, Deyde V, Garten RJ, Harris M, Gerber S, Vagoski S, Smith F, Pascoe N, Martin K, Dufficy D, Ritger K, Conover C, Quinlisk P, Klimov A, Bresee JS, Finelli L.
Triple-Reassortant Swine Influenza A (H1) in Humans in the United States, 2005-2009.
N Engl J Med. 2009 May 7

Dubberke ER, Butler AM, Hota B, Khan YM, Mangino JE, Mayer J, Popovich KJ, Stevenson KB, Yokoe DS, McDonald LC, Jernigan J, Fraser VJ.
Multicenter Study of the Impact of Community-Onset Clostridium difficile Infection on Surveillance for C. difficile Infection. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2009 May 5