Upcoming Book Release: "Biosurveillance: Methods and Case Studies"

This entry is being cross-posted from Biosurveillance 2.0, a blog by Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MS, who recently announced the upcoming release of his new book, Biosurveillance: Methods and Case Studies.

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My new book on Biosurveillance is scheduled for release on September 17th, 2010. The book:

• Provides a synopsis of current state-of-the-art practices as well as a starting point for the development and evaluation of new methods
• Covers applied research and complete case studies in biosurveillance that focus on local, regional and national implementation
• Presents techniques from other fields, such as intelligence and engineering
• Explores future innovations in biosurveillance, including advances in analytical methods, modeling, and simulation
• Addresses policy and organizational issues related to the construction of biosurveillance systems

“While having its roots in 21st Century infectious disease threats to health on a grand scale, biosurveillance has come to encompass a broader scope of the science and practice of managing population health-related data and information so that effective action can be taken to mitigate adverse health effects from urgent threats. This expansive scope is reflected in the diverse collection of reports and perspectives brought together in this text, Biosurveillance." — From the Foreword by Daniel M. Sosin, MD, MPH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Table of Contents

• Timeliness of Data Sources, Lynne Dailey, PhD, MPH, BSc.
• Simulating and Evaluating Biosurveillance Datasets, Thomas H. Lotze, Galit Shmueli, Lotze, Shmueli, Yahav Inbal Yahav, and Robert H. Smith
• Remote Sensing-Based Modeling of Infectious Disease Transmission, Richard K. Kiang, Farida Adimi, Radina P. Soebiyanto
• Integrating Human Capabilities into Biosurveillance Systems: A Study of Biosurveillance and Situation Awareness, Cheryl A. Bolstad, Haydee M. Cuevas, Jingjing Wang-Costello, Mica R. Endsley, Walton John Page, and Taha Kass-Hout
• The Role of Zoos in Biosurveillance, Julia Chosy, PhD, Janice Mladonick, and Tracey McNamara, DVM
• HealthMap, Amy L. Sonricker, MPH, Clark C. Freifeld, Mikaela Keller, PhD, John S. Brownstein, PhD
• The Role of SMS Text Messaging to Improve Public Health Response, Elizabeth Avery Gomez, Ph.D.
• Using Prediction Markets to Forecast Infectious Diseases, Philip M. Polgreen, MD, MPH, and Forrest D. Nelson, PhD
• The Role of Data Aggregation in Public Health and Food Safety Surveillance, Artur Dubrawski
• Introduction to China’s Infectious Disease Surveillance System, Jin Shuigao and Ma Jiaqi
• Biosurveillance and Public Health Practice: A Case Study of North Carolina’s NC DETECT System, S. Cornelia Kaydos-Daniels, PhD, MSPH; Lucia Rojas Smith, DrPH,, MPH; Amy I. Ising, MSIS; Clifton Barnett, MSIS; Tonya Farris, MPH;, Anna E. Waller, ScD; and Scott Wetterhall, MD, MPH
• Aberration Detection in R Illustrated by Danish mortality monitoring, Michael Höhl and, Anne Mazick
• User Requirements toward a Real-Time Biosurveillance Program, Nuwan Waidyanatha and Suma Prashant
• Using Common Alerting Protocol to Support a Real-Time Biosurveillance Program in Sri Lanka and India, Gordon A. Gow and Nuwan Waidyanatha
• Navigating the Information Storm: Web-Based Global Health Surveillance in BioCaster, Nigel Collier, Son Doan, Reiko Matsuda Goodwin, John McCrae, Mike Conway, Mika Shigematsu, and Ai Kawazoe
• A Snapshot of Situation Awareness: Using the NC DETECT System to Monitor the 2007 Heat Wave, David B. Rein
• Linking Detection to Effective Response, Scott F. Wetterhall, MD, MPH, Taha A. Kass-Hout, MD, MS , and David L. Buckeridge, MD, PhD

By reading this book, I hope you reap from it lessons and insights to apply in your work for a lifetime.
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First International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance

Thanks to a fellow ISDS member, we have received information on the first ever International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance, taking place from May 17-20, 2011, in Lyon, France.

Here is the information from the first announcement:

Surveillance: Science and Policy

The Aim
The aim of the conference is to gather scientists and policy makers working in the area of animal health surveillance to exchange new ideas and better understand the challenges and opportunities that each group faces, and to develop solutions for future surveillance approaches under considerations of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and quality that fulfil the needs of both policy and science. The meeting is timed immediately before the General Session of the OIE to be held in Paris the week after. It is hoped that policy makers (including Chief Veterinary Officers and their technical staff members) will take this opportunity to both guide surveillance research to meet their needs and learn how new techniques may influence the way policy develops in the future.

The Venue
The conference will be held in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Lyon, gastronomic capital of France. Presentations will take place in the baroque Chapelle de la Trinité, built between 1617 and 1622 as the chapel of the Jesuit Grand Collège. This magnificent space is in the heart of Lyon, within walking distance of dozens of hotels catering to all budgets, and hundreds of restaurants catering to all palettes. 2011 marks the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the world’s first veterinary school in Lyon, and this meeting has joined with the World Veterinary Year organizers to celebrate the event.

The Target Population
•Scientists – those using or researching new techniques and tools for surveillance
•Practitioners – those responsible for implementing surveillance programs and wishing to be updated on the latest opportunities and developments
•Policy makers – those responsible for setting national, regional and international standards for surveillance The focus of the meeting is on animal health surveillance, but those working in zoonoses and human health surveillance are welcome to attend and to share their experiences.

The Dates
September 2010: First call for paper
1 December 2010: Deadline for submission of papers
1 February 2011: Notification of acceptance 17.
May 2011: Begin on Conference

The Website
Please visit the conference website to download the conference brochure and register your email address in order to receive further information.

2010 Conference Registration Now Open

Registration and abstract submission are now open for ISDS 2010, the 9th Annual Conference of the International Society for Disease Surveillance. The conference will take place on December 1st & 2nd, 2010 at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah. A full day pre-conference workshop will be held on November 30th.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Enhancing the Synergy Between Research, Informatics and Practice in Public Health.” The conference is designed to provide researchers, informaticists, and public health practitioners with the latest developments in the design, implementation, use, and evaluation of biosurveillance systems.

By registering before September 6th, 2010, you can take advantage of our early registration rate. In addition, you can save on your registration fee by becoming an ISDS member.

Information on conference registration, hotel room reservations and abstract submission can be found on the 2010 Conference page. Please email Conference Information with any questions.

We look forward to seeing you at the 2010 annual conference!

Best wishes,

The ISDS Conference Committee

Upcoming Webinar on "Disaster Surveillance: Lessons Learned from the Field"

On Monday, June 28th, the Public Health Practice Committee is hosting a webinar on "Disaster Surveillance: Lessons Learned from the Field," from 12:30 - 1:30 pm EST. There will be a 45 minute presentation followed by a 15 minute Q&A session.

Speakers and Topics:

Aaron Kite-Powell, Florida Department of Public Health: Overview of disaster surveillance experiences in Florida - hurricanes, fires, and evacuees

Amy Roach, South Carolina Department of Public Health: Airport surveillance - "on the ground" during the airport screen for evacuees from Haiti

Dan Drociuk, South Carolina Department of Public Health: Communication and information sharing - State to State interactions "pre-event"

Register here.

2010 Call for Abstracts

Ninth Annual Conference of the International Society for Disease Surveillance
Enhancing the synergy between research, informatics, and practice in public health

December 1-2, 2010
The Canyons Resort, Park City, Utah

Submissions of original work are now being accepted for presentation at the 9th annual International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) conference to be held in Park City, Utah, December 1-2, 2010. This year’s conference will focus on enhancing the synergy between research, informatics, and practice in public health. Topics that address the conference theme 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 conference will feature internationally renowned speakers from health departments, leading universities, government agencies, and top industrial organizations.

The four themes for abstract submissions are:
•Public health surveillance
•Analytics/research methodologies
•Informatics (applications/practice and architecture/integration/interoperability)
•Applications of methodologies to new domains

Submit your abstract online

Questions regarding the call for abstracts may be sent to the Scientific Program Chair, Atar Baer.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to seeing you in Park City in December at the annual conference.

Best regards,

The International Society for Disease Surveillance

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Important Dates:
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Web site open for submissions: June 21, 2010
Submission deadline: September 3, 2010 (midnight Eastern U.S.)
Authors notified of acceptance: October 15th, 2010
Pre-conference workshop: November 30, 2010
Conference: December 1-2, 2010

Upcoming Webinar: Rates of Hospital-Acquired Respiratory Illness in Bangladeshi Tertiary Care Hospitals

The ISDS Global Outreach and Research Committees are pleased to welcome Emily Gurley as the guest speaker for their next joint webinar. She will present on her recently published work entitled, "Rates of Hospital-Acquired Respiratory Illness in Bangladeshi Tertiary Care Hospitals: Results from a Low-Cost Pilot Surveillance Strategy":

Respiratory infections can spread quickly in crowded hospitals with limited infection control infrastructure, and these facilities typically also lack surveillance systems to detect hospital acquired disease. We piloted a simple, syndromic surveillance strategy for hospital acquired respiratory infections in 3 tertiary care hospitals in Bangladesh and found that clusters of disease were frequent and that approximately 6 such infection occurred per 1000 patient days at risk. This low-tech surveillance strategy could be used in resource-poor hospital settings to better define burden of disease and evaluate the impact of infection control interventions.

The webinar will take place on Tuesday, July 6th from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm EST.

Register here.

ISDS/Distribute Presentations at CSTE Annual Conference

At the 2010 CSTE Annual Conference, running from June 6th to June 10th in Portland, Oregon, there will be two presentations by ISDS members on the Distribute Project:

Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 4:30 pm PST:
ISDS President David Buckeridge will be giving an oral presentation entitled, "Innovations in public health surveillance: Lessons learned from the rapid expansion of the Distribute project to support H1N1 surveillance." This presentation is a part of the Surveillance/Informatics I session on Innovations & Progress in Data Integration and Sharing.

Tuesday, June 8th, 10:00 am PST:
ISDS Board members Bill Lober and John Brownstein, along with Taha Kass-Hout, Acting Deputy Director at CDC, will be hosting a poster session entitled, "An innovative, distributed surveillance informatics infrastructure for H1N1 and beyond." This poster (Board #701) is a part of the Surveillance/Informatics session in Exhibit Hall A.

Full agenda available here.