2013 ISDS Call for Abstracts

Abstract submissions are now being accepted for presentation at the 2013 International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) Conference to be held in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 12-13, 2013. The theme for this year's conference- Translating Research and Surveillance into Action- will focus on strategies for incorporating the latest in biosurveillance approaches, methodologies, and results into evidence-based public health practices, programs, and policies. Submissions that address the conference theme, i.e. the effective transfer of evidence to inform public health, and/or international surveillance and collaboration are especially encouraged.

  

The ISDS conference is the premier annual scientific gathering for researchers and practitioners in public health, epidemiology, health policy, biostatistics and mathematical modeling, informatics, computer science, and related fields focused on biosurveillance and emerging challenges to public health practice. The 2013 ISDS Conference will feature internationally renowned speakers from health departments, leading academic institutions, government agencies, international health agencies and top industrial organizations.

  

Abstracts accepted for presentation at the 2013 ISDS Conference will be published in a special supplement of the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics.

Discipline-Specific Themes

Analytical Methods: This theme is focused on important and novel advances in the field of surveillance methodologies and analytical approaches. Abstracts in this category may describe methods used in a production-type environment, still under development, or which have been tested only in a research setting.  

Informatics: Abstracts in this category may describe informatics practices used in a production-type environment, still under development, or which have been tested only in a research setting.  

Policy (at local, state, federal, international levels): Topics include, but are not limited to: legal/ethical/security/privacy issues in surveillance; Meaningful Use (U.S. policy) impact on public health departments; policies around social media/leveraging social networks for risk communication; and International Health Regulations (2005). 

Public health/population health surveillance practice:

This discipline is focused on improving the daily processes of surveillance, outbreak investigation, management, and response. Abstracts in this category may describe practices used in a production environment by public health departments or other agencies or describe evaluations of public health surveillance, health systems research, etc.   

Presentation Types

Oral: Oral presentations will be allotted 15 minutes, followed by 5 minutes for questions.

Poster: Posters are the preferred format for presenting preliminary research and results of small-scale studies; describing experimental projects/programs or works-in-progress; and reporting system descriptions. Poster sessions are designed to offer direct access to the authors in a way not possible through oral presentations.

Panel: Panel presentations are the preferred format for deeper discussions of an issue or question. These sessions are typically more interactive than oral presentations, involving active discussion among the panelists and the audience.  

Roundtable: The goal of a roundtable is to encourage discussion rather than be a presentation/didactic session. The leader should be a knowledgeable and engaging person who can help stimulate a lively discussion.

Lightning Talk *New for 2013*: We are introducing a new format this year, which we hope will enable more participation from conference attendees. These Lightning Sessions are designed to facilitate the speedy sharing of recent research, theory, publications, works-in-progress, projects, applications or experiences pertaining to any aspect of the science or practice of surveillance. Each speaker has just 5 minutes for their talk and must submit no more than 5 slides prior to the conference.  The 5 minutes must be strictly adhered to, and will be timed by means of a countdown timer, which the session moderator will control.

Presentation Categories

How To: This presentation style is focused on explaining the step-by-step process for accomplishing a task in practice, with the objective that participants will be able to learn how to implement the processes presented. Examples include sharing code for a visualization; how to monitor data quality in a system; how to translate ICD-9 to ICD-10 codes; how to geographically visualize data; how to conduct cluster detection, etc.  

Lessons Learned: This presentation style is focused on projects that have already been implemented. It provides an opportunity for presenters to share their experiences with peers.

Future Concepts and Ideas: This presentation style is focused on projects that are in progress, or to showcase ideas for future projects for discussion feedback.

For details, please click here.    

Abstract Submission Deadline: September 9, 2013