Job Announcement: Recruitment for CDC's Injury Center Director

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is actively recruiting a Director for the National Center Injury Prevention and Control (the CDC Injury Center). CDC welcomes your consideration for the position or help in identifying qualified candidates.

For more than 20 years, the CDC Injury Center has helped protect Americans from injury and violence. As the nation's leading authority on injury and violence, the CDC Injury Center studies injuries and violence and the best ways to prevent them, applying science for real-world solutions to keep people safe, healthy, and productive. The CDC Injury Center Director will lead national efforts for non-occupational injury prevention and control, including the prevention of prescription drug overdose, motor vehicle-related injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and violence against child and youth. Prevention is the most effective, common-sense way to improve health and lower economic costs related to injuries and violence.

The CDC Injury Center's priority is to equip states, local communities, and partner organizations with the best science, tools, and resources so that they can take effective action to save lives and protect people from injuries and violence.  By leading an organization of over 250 staff, the Director will provide the vision and direction to accomplish CDC's strategic imperatives and goals, and lead and manage the performance of the organization.  In addition, he or she will partner with state and local health agencies, private organizations, and other Federal agencies to reduce violence and monitor injury related health issues.

Below are the links to the job description, which will remain open until April 11th, 2014.
·     PhD or equivalent advanced degree:  HHS-CDC-AD-14-1051258
·     MDs only: HHS-CDC-AD-14-1056920

For questions about this position, please contact:
·     Ed Hunter - elh1@cdc.gov - (202) 245-0600
·     Sandy Bonzo - seb2@cdc.gov - (770) 488-0523

For questions about the application process, please contact:
·     Vicky Hunter - VHunter@cdc.gov - (404) 639-7124

CSTE Focus Group Pilot Needs Participants

CSTE is leading a scientific writing capacity assessment and is looking for epidemiologists to participate in the pilot focus groups.  The assessment objective is to assess current themes and issues that epidemiologists experience in state and local health departments surrounding formal publishing.  The pilot data collection will occur between March 10-21, 2014.

CSTE invites you to participate in the pilot focus group if:

• You are an epidemiologist (do not have to be a CSTE member);

• You work at a state or local health department;

• You can commit to participate in the 1.5 hour focus group session.

If you meet the above criteria and are interested in participating in the pilot focus group, please email Jessica Pittman at JPittman@cste.org no later than Friday, March 7th, 2014.

University of Michigan's Graduate Summer Session in Epidemiology: e-Surveillance

Dates: July 21- 25, 2014
Time: 8:30am - 12:00pm

The University of Michigan's Graduate Summer Session in Epidemiology is offering a new course in 2014: e-Surveillance (EPID 795 e-Surveillance).

The e-Surveillance course is designed to familiarize students with the emerging practices and principles of public health surveillance in the 21st-century. The course will describe how new opportunities in governance, inter- and intra-agency collaborations, information and communication technologies (ICT), cutting edge analytic tools and techniques, novel data sources, and a dynamic workforce are fundamentally transforming the future of public health surveillance. This course will demonstrate how core functions of public health surveillance including detection, registration, confirmation, analysis, feedback, communication, and response can be enabled, enhanced, and empowered by these new opportunities.

Course flyer

Learn more

3rd International One Health Congress: New Website & Info

  

 3^rd INTERNATIONAL ONE HEALTH CONGRESS

 launches new website

www.iohc2015.com  FOLLOW US

Online registration is possible from 1 April, 2014

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CONGRESS THEME: PREVENTION AT THE SOURCE 

The 3rd International One Health Congress brings science and policy together aiming at

the early recognition and control of emerging (infectious) diseases, now and in the years to come. 

Prevention at the source is key in controlling (infectious) diseases that have a growing impact on humans, animals and their ecosystems. 

Visit www.iohc2015.com for more information about scientific focus and program.

Fridays from the Archives: Surveillance & Integration

Friday, February 21, 2014: Surveillance & Integration

Public health practitioners are increasingly focused on understanding cross-border syndromic surveillance data. Here in the US, ISDS encourages inter-state data understanding and sharing through regional workshops. In Europe, practitioners have been working since 2010 on gathering data and creating a framework for integrating syndromic surveillance. This has occurred under the scope of work of the Triple-S project. 

In 2012 Duncan Cooper, a Registrar in Public Health under the UK's National Health Service,  spoke about gathering data from European countries on their syndromic surveillance systems. In Towards Integrated Syndromic Surveillance in Europe?, Dr. Cooper describes Triple-S's work to meet the objective of "increasing the European capacity for real-time or near-real time surveillance and monitoring the health burden of expected and unexpected health related events". 

First, the presentation addresses practical concerns. Prior to integrating syndromic surveillance systems, the project needs data. Not syndromic surveillance data, per se, but metadata on the systems themselves. For instance, who are the key stakeholders? What are individual syndromic surveillance systems used for? Is there even a syndromic surveillance system in all target countries?

To answer these questions the Triple-S project team identified key stakeholders and lined up site visits throughout Europe. They also sent questionnaires to 28 European Union countries, including subsequent in-depth follow up questionnaires. With this data, the project progressed to identifying next steps, including developing a minimum dataset, communication materials, common evaluation criteria, and checklists. 

Perhaps most importantly, this project established trust and communication between a variety of public health jurisdictions. Going forward, the EU can integrate reporting on syndromic surveillance functions such as outbreak detection and general public-health surveillance, a vital function in a very inter-connected world.

This post is part of the series Fridays from the Archives. You can access all posts in the series here.

Written by Becky Zwickl, MPH, ISDS Public Health Analyst (bzwickl@syndromic.org).

CSTE Webinar on the ACA and Health Care Integration: February 12th, 1 pm ET

On Wednesday, February 12, 2014 from 1-2pm EST, CSTE will be hosting a webinar entitled Notes from the Field: Oregon’s and Illinois’ Experiences with Public Health and Health Care Integration.  This webinar will characterize the role of the epidemiologist in a post-ACA environment.

After this webinar, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the role of the epidemiologist in a post-ACA environment.
2. Describe the importance of metrics for successful public health and primary care integration efforts.

The webinar will be presented by Katrina Hedberg, State Epidemiologist in Oregon, and Craig Conover, State Epidemiologist in Illinois.

Topic: Feb. Primary Care Integration Call 

Host: Jessica Pittman 

Date: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 

Time: 1:00 pm, Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00) 

Session number: 792 743 127 

Session password: epi1234 

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To join the session 

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1. Go to https://cste.webex.com/cste/k2/j.php?MTID=tef337c6156deb092061e945b8a522ff8 

2. Enter your name and email address (or registration ID). 

3. Enter the session password: epi1234 

4. Click "Join Now". 

5. Follow the instructions that appear on your screen.

Fridays from the Archives: Meaningful Use & Ambulatory Data

Friday, February 7, 2014: Meaningful Use & Ambulatory Data

It's the first Friday of the month, which means the Meaningful Use Community Call is this afternoon (more info here). These calls act as a platform for public health practitioners to discuss their status with implementing the syndromic surveillance objective of Meaningful Use, often looking towards future Meaningful Use stages. We've had many discussions surrounding what to do with Eligible Professionals, or EPs, who are interested in submitting data. Currently, many jurisdictions are putting these EPs in queues until they have the capacity to process their data. 

But why is receiving ambulatory data an issue at all? What makes ambulatory data unique from existing Emergency Department (ED) data?

One of the largest challenges in incorporating ambulatory data is sheer volume. Corey Spears and Michelle Siefert plainly lay out this dilemma in Discovering the New Frontier of Syndromic Surveillance: A Meaningful Use Dialogue on Inpatient and Ambulatory EHR Technology. At an ED visit the patient, at least ostensibly, is encountering some type of emergency to prompt the visit. In ambulatory settings, routine visits are common. Additionally, there are a wide variety of ambulatory care providers. Do public health departments want data from internists? Almost certainly. But do they also want data from dermatologists? That's a bit less certain.

This webinar is particularly interesting because it presents the information from the perspective of EHR vendors, an important stakeholder group that has substantial investment in Meaningful Use processes.

Interested in learning more? Join our Meaningful Use Community calls and view the webinar recording on the ISDS website.

This post is part of the series Fridays from the Archives. You can access all posts in the series here.

Written by Becky Zwickl, MPH, ISDS Public Health Analyst (bzwickl@syndromic.org).