Training for Surveillance of Heart Disease, Stroke and Other Chronic Diseases in State Health Departments

Please see the message below regarding the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Training for Surveillance of Heart Disease, Stroke and Other Chronic Diseases in State Health Departments (SHDs).

Eligible State Health Department Applicants:

State health departments from any of the 50 US states and the District of Columbia are eligible to apply, with the exception of Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin. These states are excluded because they have already participated in the GIS Training for Surveillance of Heart Disease, Stroke and Other Chronic Diseases.

State Applications are due January 9, 2015; notification of award by February 16, 2015.

You can find the application attached here:

http://www.chronicdisease.org/?page=GISNov2014Announce

Flu Near You - InnoCentive Challenge Annoucement

The Pandemics team at the Skoll Global Threats Fund would like to share some information about our upcoming Data Challenge that we've developed in partnership with Innocentive. Since 2011 Flu Near You, a collaboration between the American Public Health Association, HealthMap of Boston Children's Hospital, and the Skoll Global Threats Fund, has collected weekly reports of influenza-like illness symptoms from volunteers in the United States and Canada. With well over 100,000 user registrations and recently surpassing 1,000,000 total reports, we've shown that we really can put the PUBLIC back into public health. 

Now that Flu Near You has demonstrated its current value and future potential as a public health surveillance tool, we'd like to engage researchers, data scientists, statisticians, epidemiologists and others in answering a fundamental question that will guide our continued development of Flu Near You - how many volunteer reports do we need to meet our public health surveillance goals? We've developed this Challenge to solicit a wide variety of ideas and approaches to answering this question. We would encourage you to take a look HERE and share widely within your networks. 

https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933598

Best Regards, 

Team Pandemics

Pre-Conference Trainings

An In-Depth Look at Track 4: 

Mapping and Biosurveillance: Using ArcGIS

Date/Time: December 9, 2014 - 8:00am - 4:15pm

Location: Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, PA

Target Audience
The target audience of this training is public health practitioners, graduate students and researchers.

Description
Advances in geographical information systems (GIS) and mapping technologies have created exciting new opportunities for public health professionals to collect, analyze, display, and share multiple types of data and information. Biosurveillance has benefitted greatly from these tolls and continues to be enhanced as more individuals learn the nuances of GIS. ArcGIS, the mapping software developed by ESRI, has become the industry standard and is used in most public health departments in the U.S. This session will provide an introduction and focused examples of how the ArcGIS platform can be used for biosurveillance. Topics covered include: introduction to ArcGIS Online; introduction to Esri Maps for Office and integration of Esri Maps for Office and ArcGIS Online; and introduction to Community Analyst/Business Analyst. There will be a didactic session for each topic, followed by a hands-on session to apply the skills learned. Typical geocoded tabular health data will be provided for the hands-on sessions.

Learn more about the 2014 ISDS Pre-Conference Trainings here.

Call for Abstracts: Pathways Into Health 2015 Conference October 12-14, Seattle, WA - Abstracts due February 20

8th National Conference ACHIEVING EXCELLENCE, HARMONY, AND BALANCE: Uniting and Sustaining Pathways into Health Professions CALL FOR ABSTRACTS Submission Deadline: February 20 Pathways Into Health invites abstracts to be considered for presentation at the 8th National Conference on October 12-14, 2015 in Seattle, WA. The theme of the 2015 conference, Uniting and Sustaining Pathways into Health Professions, explores opportunities to unite, enhance, and sustain new and existing pathways into health professions for American Indian and Alaska Native individuals and communities. Call for Abstracts Our aim is to make the Pathways Conference the premier venue for cutting-edge educational methodologies for engaging AI/AN populations in health professions and for making findings, programs, and resources useable by non-scientists. The 2015 conference agenda will have four core concepts of focus: 1  Cultural Attunement 2  Interprofessional Education (IPE) 3  Distance Learning/Telehealth Technologies 4  Health career development through the life span Pathways welcomes abstracts related to successful implementation of programs, initiatives, and policies that engage AI/AN individuals and communities in health professions. We particularly encourage abstracts that address the conference theme and inform strategies for uniting and sustaining pathways into health professions. Abstracts must focus on one or more of the four core concepts. Read the full Call for Abstracts here: http://pathwaysintohealth.org/conference/call-for-abstracts/ The submission deadline is February 20, 2015. Notifications will be sent out in early May.

1st International Who's Who in One Health Webinar

Dear One Health Friends and Colleagues:

The One Health Commission (OHC) is pleased to announce the 1st International Who's Who in One Health Webinar to be held November 10, 2014. The Webinar will bring together noted One Health leaders, advocates, professionals and students in real-time to discuss global One Health efforts while providing a forum for dialogue within and across disciplines.

 The main objectives of the Webinar are to:

• Connect One Health stakeholders around the world to better understand, share and highlight individual- and agency-level efforts;
• Educate Webinar participants about the One Health paradigm and way of thinking towards improved health outcomes; and
• Create new strategic partnerships and networks for collective, purposeful and coordinated action

 Click here to register.

Already there are 240 registrants from 50 countries. The goal of this webinar is to connect with as many One Health leaders/supporters  around the world as possible on November 10.  We hope you might join in for part or all of this day long webinar.  Also, as an advocate for One Health, please consider sharing this information with your own networks and listservs (email, website, social media etc). Feel free to add this information directly to your own website and hyperlink back to the OHC International Webinar page (www.onehealthcommission.org/globalwebinar). Thank you! 

Hope you can join in.  

The One Health Commission
Who’S Who in One Health International Webinar Team

SHINE Informatics Fellowships Applications Information and Timeline

Strengthening health systems through interprofessional education (SHINE) is the focus of Project SHINE. The Applied Public Health Informatics Fellowship (APHIF), Health Systems Integration Program (HSIP), and Informatics Training in Place Program (I-TIPP) are one-year fellowship programs that provide capacity building opportunities at health departments in health systems, informatics, and epidemiology. The fellowship programs’ mission is to meet the nation’s increasing and urgent need for applied public health informatics and epidemiology workforce capacity in state and local health departments. Project SHINE is supported by Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, National Association of County and City Health Officials, and Public Health Informatics Institute. This email describes each of the three SHINE fellowship programs. Applied Public Health Informatics Fellowship (APHIF)--   APHIF was established in 2012 to train recent graduates in the expanding field of applied public health informatics. The goal of the fellowship is to provide a high quality training experience for the Fellow while providing service to the host agency and to secure long-term career placement for Fellows at the state or local level. Participating Fellows will receive one year of on-the-job training at a local or state health agency under the guidance of experienced mentors. For more information on APHIF host site requirements (including an archived information webinar session) and the application, click here. Note: an email was previously sent with APHIF host site application information. Health Systems Integration Program (HSIP)-- HSIP aims to place experienced public health professionals at State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial health departments for one year. The recent push for improved outcomes in population health has called for these public health and primary care sectors to collaborate more effectively. The Fellows will be involved in activities that address 1) community epidemiologic surveillance to support community health needs assessments, 2) the public health interface and use of electronic health records, and 3) lessons learned from successful public health and primary care professional partnerships. For more information on HSIP host site requirements (including an archived information webinar session) and the application, click here. Informatics Training in Place Program (I-TIPP)-- I-TIPP is an innovative-approach to bring relevant on-the-job training to appropriate State, Tribal, Local, Territorial (STLT) health department staff. “Training-In-Place” is defined as the systematic approach to deliver an applied training curriculum in the workplace. I-TIPP aims to train members of existing workforce while they are employed in a STLT health department. Delivered over a one year period, this program is designed for individuals with an interest in gaining more training in public health informatics. This applied training program will provide an overview of various topics within public health informatics with a particular emphasis on meaningful use (MU) and surveillance system improvement. There will be an information session on “I-TIPP Strategies for Successful Applications” on December 3rd. For more information on this session, I-TIPP host site requirements, and the application, click here. To learn more about each of the above programs, please visit http://shinefellows.org/. Please note that each SHINE fellowship program has different application deadlines, which are detailed in this table:

10/30/14	APHIF & HSIP Strategies for Successful Applications Information Session
11/3/14	APHIF Fellow Application Opens
11/3/14	HSIP Fellow Application Opens
11/3/14	I-TIPP Application Opens
11/21/14	APHIF Host Site Application Closes
12/1/14	I-TIPP Strategies for Successful Applications Information Session
12/15/14	HSIP Host Site Application Closes
1/30/15	HSIP Fellow Application Closes
2/16/15	HSIP Fellow Application Closes
3/31/15	I-TIPP Application Closes