The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) Research Committee is happy to annouce an online webinar by Anne Presanis, Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK, presenting their paper "The Severity of Pandemic H1N1 Influenza in the United States, from April to July 2009: A Bayesian Analysis" published in the December 2009 issue of PLoS Medicine.
The presentation will take place during the bi-monthly Literature Review call on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm EST.
Register here.
Welcome to the blog for the International Society for Disease Surveillance. By serving as a gateway to other ISDS resources, this blog is intended to keep Society members informed on recent Society activity and news in disease surveillance. You can view the full blog by clicking on the banner above.
28 May 2010
11 May 2010
Research Committee Webinar: Understanding the Spectrum of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Data Sources and Their Variation By Community
The ISDS Research Committee is hosting a webinar on Thursday, May 27th, from 12:00-1:30 pm EST on EMS data sources.
There is a saying in EMS that if you've "seen one EMS system, then you've seen one EMS system". Many EMS systems have good or even great data for surveillance and research, but while there are some standards developing for EMS data formats and sharing, very few systems have the capability to share data using them.
Presenters will discuss the current state of 9-1-1/EMS dispatch and field electronic medical records systems, and the changing impact of the official and informal standards and variations of data seen in different communities. In addition, research using EMS data to predict hospital ED overload, and EMS correlation with ILI will also be addressed.
Moderated by: Todd Stout, FirstWatch
Presenters:
Abey Kuruvilla, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Business & Technology
University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Christopher H O Olola, Ph.D.
Director of Biomedical Informatics and Research
National Academies of Emergency Dispatch
Register here.
There is a saying in EMS that if you've "seen one EMS system, then you've seen one EMS system". Many EMS systems have good or even great data for surveillance and research, but while there are some standards developing for EMS data formats and sharing, very few systems have the capability to share data using them.
Presenters will discuss the current state of 9-1-1/EMS dispatch and field electronic medical records systems, and the changing impact of the official and informal standards and variations of data seen in different communities. In addition, research using EMS data to predict hospital ED overload, and EMS correlation with ILI will also be addressed.
Moderated by: Todd Stout, FirstWatch
Presenters:
Abey Kuruvilla, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Business & Technology
University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Christopher H O Olola, Ph.D.
Director of Biomedical Informatics and Research
National Academies of Emergency Dispatch
Register here.
05 May 2010
Save the Date: ISDS 9th Annual Conference, Park City, UT
We are pleased to announce the International Society for Disease Surveillance's Ninth Annual Conference taking place this year from November 30th to December 2nd, 2010 in Park City, Utah.
This year’s theme is “Enhancing the Synergy Between Research, Informatics and Practice in Public Health.”
We encourage you to join your colleagues in public health, epidemiology, informatics, health policy, biostatistics, and related fields at this event. The conference will offer informative presentations and lively discussions in the following thematic areas:
• Research/Methodology
• Informatics
• Public Health Practice
• Surveillance in New Domains
Please check the website regularly at for details on registration and abstract submissions.
This year’s theme is “Enhancing the Synergy Between Research, Informatics and Practice in Public Health.”
We encourage you to join your colleagues in public health, epidemiology, informatics, health policy, biostatistics, and related fields at this event. The conference will offer informative presentations and lively discussions in the following thematic areas:
• Research/Methodology
• Informatics
• Public Health Practice
• Surveillance in New Domains
Please check the website regularly at for details on registration and abstract submissions.
29 April 2010
Global Outreach Webinar: “Developing Strategic Learning Capabilities in Regional Disease Surveillance Networks”
The ISDS Global Outreach Committee will be hosting a special webinar presented by the Global Health and Security Initiative entitled "Developing Strategic Learning Capabilities in Regional Disease Surveillance Networks" on Monday, May 17th from 10:00-11:00 AM EST. Louise Gresham and colleagues will be speaking about the CHORDS Project and its role in developing IHR competencies around the world.
Full event details including registration and speaker information available here.
Full event details including registration and speaker information available here.
20 April 2010
Announcing the 2010 Public Health Practice and Research Syndromic Surveillance Challenge
The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) announces the 2010 Public Health Practice and Research Syndromic Surveillance Challenge:
Consistent with the theme of this year’s annual ISDS conference, the public health and research challenge aims to enhance the synergy between research, informatics, and practice in public health. Through May 15th, 2010, public health practitioners are asked to submit disease surveillance practice and research issues or challenges they are facing (e.g., “I need to have a measure of excess morbidity due to a-b-c,” or “I need a visualization that will help me achieve x-y-z”). Submitted challenges must be those that can be addressed using a dataset that is publicly available, or contributed by the challenger, with Distribute project data being one of the sources. The hope is that novel approaches to visualizing or analyzing data will be developed that can be applied to address challenges that public health practitioners are facing.
ISDS will provide publicly available datasets and will supply a Distribute data set for researchers and informaticists to work with. Individuals or groups will have 3 months to work on solutions to the challenges posted by practitioners. In August, the solutions will be presented to practitioners, who will have an opportunity to assess and comment on the best solution(s) to the challenges they are facing. The Scientific Program Committee will make the final selection of winners.
An important challenge requirement is that all work developed for the contest is clearly and efficiently presented. Those who respond to the technical challenges must be willing to make their work available to the scientific and public health communities at large. Authorship could come in the form of an ISDS online publication (ie, through a Knol or open access online journal), a conference presentation slot, or special speaking engagement depending on the quality of work that the contest delivers.
The Scientific Program Committee hopes that this contest will stimulate interest and will induce contribution of other challenge problems for future consideration.
Data Sets
The contest will provide datasets, with examples including the following:
- Sample Distribute aggregate febrile, respiratory and influenza-like illness (ILI) syndrome file
- Google Flu Trends ILI search query index aggregate file
- US regional aggregate sentinel surveillance ILI file
- Sample datasets provided by challengers, specific to their proposed challenge
Contest Rules
• Public health practitioners who wish to declare a challenge must do so by May 15th. Please send an email to Don Olson with the technical challenge you are posing. Be sure to include as much background information and detail as possible as well as an email address where you can be reached if there are follow-up questions about the issue you are raising. Challenges that cannot be addressed using the available data will be disqualified.
• Those who are interested in developing solutions to the technical challenge must register their intent to participate by May 30th by sending an email to Don Olson. The challenge will proceed only if a sufficient number of people have registered. The contest will be canceled and you will receive notification by June 7th if there has not been sufficient interest. However, if you are still interested in working on a solution to the technical challenges posed, please contact Don for follow-up through the ISDS Research Committee.
• Depending on the number of technical challenges submitted and the number of people who have registered to develop solutions to these challenges, the Scientific Program Committee may choose to narrow down the number of technical challenges. Again, registrants will be notified by June 1st of the final selection of challenges, which will be posted on the ISDS web site.
• Challenge datasets will be sent to the registrants by June 7th, 2010.
• Participants may submit only one solution per challenge. However, there is no limit to the number of challenges that an individual or group can respond to.
• Successful entrants will provide a sufficiently documented and cited, yet brief methodology. Outputs of proprietary or restricted-access methods should not be used.
• Submissions of solutions should be sent to Don Olson by August 16th, 2010. Please include an explanation of the solution that includes sufficient detail of the methods that would allow someone else to implement them. Code and any accompanying output can be included. The submission need not be formatted for a conference abstract or a publication.
• Challenge Timeline:
o May 15 -- Last day for submitting a syndromic analytic challenge
o May 30 -- Last day to register to solve the analytic challenge
o June 1 -- Challenges selected by panel announced
o June 7 -- Challenge datasets sent to participants
o Aug. 16 -- Final day for solutions to be submitted
o Sept 17 -- Winner(s) announced
Winner Selection
• Each team will be evaluated separately on each of the technical challenges that practitioners submitted. The solutions will be posted on the ISDS web site in August and public health practitioners will have a three-week period to review the solutions and provide their input to the Scientific Program Committee on the best submission.
• The Scientific Program Committee will judge submissions based on scientific merit, methodology, and the degree to which practitioners feel the solution meets their needs. Winners will be announced by September 17th, 2010.
• In an upcoming meeting, the 2010 ISDS Scientific Program Committee will discuss possible plans for a special session at this year's conference based on the contest. We hope that all of the entrants will be able to attend and participate in the conference which will be held November 30 - December 2, 2010 in Park City, Utah. Please check www.syndromic.org for conference details and updates as they become available.
Winning Prize
Apart from the bragging rights, the team submitting the winning entry will receive a $300 cash prize and the “2010 ISDS Public Health Practice and Research Syndromic Surveillance Challenge Award” at the annual conference in Park City, Utah.
Consistent with the theme of this year’s annual ISDS conference, the public health and research challenge aims to enhance the synergy between research, informatics, and practice in public health. Through May 15th, 2010, public health practitioners are asked to submit disease surveillance practice and research issues or challenges they are facing (e.g., “I need to have a measure of excess morbidity due to a-b-c,” or “I need a visualization that will help me achieve x-y-z”). Submitted challenges must be those that can be addressed using a dataset that is publicly available, or contributed by the challenger, with Distribute project data being one of the sources. The hope is that novel approaches to visualizing or analyzing data will be developed that can be applied to address challenges that public health practitioners are facing.
ISDS will provide publicly available datasets and will supply a Distribute data set for researchers and informaticists to work with. Individuals or groups will have 3 months to work on solutions to the challenges posted by practitioners. In August, the solutions will be presented to practitioners, who will have an opportunity to assess and comment on the best solution(s) to the challenges they are facing. The Scientific Program Committee will make the final selection of winners.
An important challenge requirement is that all work developed for the contest is clearly and efficiently presented. Those who respond to the technical challenges must be willing to make their work available to the scientific and public health communities at large. Authorship could come in the form of an ISDS online publication (ie, through a Knol or open access online journal), a conference presentation slot, or special speaking engagement depending on the quality of work that the contest delivers.
The Scientific Program Committee hopes that this contest will stimulate interest and will induce contribution of other challenge problems for future consideration.
Data Sets
The contest will provide datasets, with examples including the following:
- Sample Distribute aggregate febrile, respiratory and influenza-like illness (ILI) syndrome file
- Google Flu Trends ILI search query index aggregate file
- US regional aggregate sentinel surveillance ILI file
- Sample datasets provided by challengers, specific to their proposed challenge
Contest Rules
• Public health practitioners who wish to declare a challenge must do so by May 15th. Please send an email to Don Olson with the technical challenge you are posing. Be sure to include as much background information and detail as possible as well as an email address where you can be reached if there are follow-up questions about the issue you are raising. Challenges that cannot be addressed using the available data will be disqualified.
• Those who are interested in developing solutions to the technical challenge must register their intent to participate by May 30th by sending an email to Don Olson. The challenge will proceed only if a sufficient number of people have registered. The contest will be canceled and you will receive notification by June 7th if there has not been sufficient interest. However, if you are still interested in working on a solution to the technical challenges posed, please contact Don for follow-up through the ISDS Research Committee.
• Depending on the number of technical challenges submitted and the number of people who have registered to develop solutions to these challenges, the Scientific Program Committee may choose to narrow down the number of technical challenges. Again, registrants will be notified by June 1st of the final selection of challenges, which will be posted on the ISDS web site.
• Challenge datasets will be sent to the registrants by June 7th, 2010.
• Participants may submit only one solution per challenge. However, there is no limit to the number of challenges that an individual or group can respond to.
• Successful entrants will provide a sufficiently documented and cited, yet brief methodology. Outputs of proprietary or restricted-access methods should not be used.
• Submissions of solutions should be sent to Don Olson by August 16th, 2010. Please include an explanation of the solution that includes sufficient detail of the methods that would allow someone else to implement them. Code and any accompanying output can be included. The submission need not be formatted for a conference abstract or a publication.
• Challenge Timeline:
o May 15 -- Last day for submitting a syndromic analytic challenge
o May 30 -- Last day to register to solve the analytic challenge
o June 1 -- Challenges selected by panel announced
o June 7 -- Challenge datasets sent to participants
o Aug. 16 -- Final day for solutions to be submitted
o Sept 17 -- Winner(s) announced
Winner Selection
• Each team will be evaluated separately on each of the technical challenges that practitioners submitted. The solutions will be posted on the ISDS web site in August and public health practitioners will have a three-week period to review the solutions and provide their input to the Scientific Program Committee on the best submission.
• The Scientific Program Committee will judge submissions based on scientific merit, methodology, and the degree to which practitioners feel the solution meets their needs. Winners will be announced by September 17th, 2010.
• In an upcoming meeting, the 2010 ISDS Scientific Program Committee will discuss possible plans for a special session at this year's conference based on the contest. We hope that all of the entrants will be able to attend and participate in the conference which will be held November 30 - December 2, 2010 in Park City, Utah. Please check www.syndromic.org for conference details and updates as they become available.
Winning Prize
Apart from the bragging rights, the team submitting the winning entry will receive a $300 cash prize and the “2010 ISDS Public Health Practice and Research Syndromic Surveillance Challenge Award” at the annual conference in Park City, Utah.
30 March 2010
Research Committee Update: March Webinar Recording and April Literature Review
The recording of the Research Committee's webinar on "Overview and Public Health Surveillance Utility of Poison Center Data" is now available for viewing.
Looking ahead, the Literature Review subcommittee will be hosting a presentation by Michael A. Horst, PhD, MPHS, MS, whose paper "Observing the Spread of Common Illnesses Through a Community: Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Surveillance" recently appeared in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
The subcommittee found this article particularly important because it represents an initiative to link health risk mapping with cluster detection methods that many health monitors employ. It is a link between classical spatial epidemiology and the ad-hoc methods needed for day-to-day surveillance.
The presentation will take place on Thursday, April 22nd at 12:00 pm EST.
Looking ahead, the Literature Review subcommittee will be hosting a presentation by Michael A. Horst, PhD, MPHS, MS, whose paper "Observing the Spread of Common Illnesses Through a Community: Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Surveillance" recently appeared in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.
The subcommittee found this article particularly important because it represents an initiative to link health risk mapping with cluster detection methods that many health monitors employ. It is a link between classical spatial epidemiology and the ad-hoc methods needed for day-to-day surveillance.
The presentation will take place on Thursday, April 22nd at 12:00 pm EST.
PHPC Webinar: Integration of Reported and Syndromic Disease System Information
For its March meeting, the Public Health Practice Committee hosted a webinar on "Integration of Reported and Syndromic Disease System Information."
This webinar was initiated by ISDS member Amy Ising, and presented by Aaron-Kite Powell, MS, Surveillance Epidemiologist in the Bureau of Epidemiology at the Florida Department of Health.
Aaron Kite-Powell gave an overview regarding how Florida is incorporating visualizations of their reportable disease data into their syndromic surveillance system. The presentation was followed by a general discussion regarding the need for and benefits of comparing - on a regular, systematic basis - reportable disease data and syndromic surveillance data.
As a follow up to the discussion, we would like to invite further comments on this post, especially around the following:
Is anyone presenting reportable disease data and syndromic data in the same interface? If so, how? For example, are you incorporating aggregate reportable disease data into your syndromic system (as is FL DoH) or are you making syndromic information available in your reportable disease system? If not, do you have plans to? Why? Why not?
View webinar recording
This webinar was initiated by ISDS member Amy Ising, and presented by Aaron-Kite Powell, MS, Surveillance Epidemiologist in the Bureau of Epidemiology at the Florida Department of Health.
Aaron Kite-Powell gave an overview regarding how Florida is incorporating visualizations of their reportable disease data into their syndromic surveillance system. The presentation was followed by a general discussion regarding the need for and benefits of comparing - on a regular, systematic basis - reportable disease data and syndromic surveillance data.
As a follow up to the discussion, we would like to invite further comments on this post, especially around the following:
Is anyone presenting reportable disease data and syndromic data in the same interface? If so, how? For example, are you incorporating aggregate reportable disease data into your syndromic system (as is FL DoH) or are you making syndromic information available in your reportable disease system? If not, do you have plans to? Why? Why not?
View webinar recording
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