Participate in the 2014 Student Research Paper Contest

Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD) is looking for graduate and undergraduate students to submit papers relevant to the prevention, screening, surveillance, and/or population-based intervention of chronic diseases, including but not limited to arthritis, asthma, cancer, depression, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. A peer-reviewed electronic journal, PCD was established to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in chronic disease prevention and health promotion. The journal is published weekly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

The winning manuscript will be recognized on the PCD website and will be published in a 2014 PCD release. Papers must be received electronically no later than 5:00 PM EST on January 23, 2014. More information on the contest and the submission process is available here.

Surescripts Technology Challenge

Tracking influenza in real time. Chance to win $25,000 prize!

Application Deadline: July 15, 2013

Currently, public health officials rely on a number of data sources to track influenza activity; however most of the data reported are days old when accessed. The Surescripts Technology Challenge invites applicants to create an analytical engine that can use Surescripts data captured in real time to track influenza.

We are seeking individual women applicants and women team-leaders for this challenge. Men are welcome to participate as part of teams led by women. Our goal is to provide a platform and help strengthen efforts underway to encourage women to lead in the areas of technology, health and science. The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) will be serving as an advisor to Surescripts for this Challenge.

Applicants are required to submit mock-ups and navigation flow, as well as a statement of their qualifications and interest in this challenge in PDF format. Please submit your application via email to jill.mulligan@surescripts.com by July 15, 2013.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Team Lead must be a female serving as a key participating member of the tech team
• Ability for the Team Lead to present at a one-day session in Washington DC on Wednesday, November 13th
• Surescripts and ASTHO employees are not eligible
• See below for complete terms and conditions

For more information, please visit Surescripts' website. 

2012 ISDS Award for Outstanding Research Articles in Biosurveillance

The International Society for Disease Surveillance Research Committee developed the Award for Outstanding Research Articles in Biosurveillance (2012 Award) in order to recognize disease surveillance scientists and professionals for contributions to their fields of research.

The initial 2012 Award candidate pool consisted of articles summarized by members of the ISDS Literature Review Subcommittee between January 2010 and March 2012. A nomination period was open from June 4th through June 25th, during which anyone could nominate one or more of the articles in the initial pool or write-in any relevant article published in 2010 or later. The Award Committee then reviewed all nominated articles and narrowed the list down to 5 finalist articles in each award category, using category-specific criteria. The ISDS membership voted to determine the final award winners. 

At the culmination of this process, the ISDS Research Committee is proud to announce the Awards for Outstanding Research Articles in Biosurveillance:

Impact on Field of Biosurveillance Category 

First Prize: Lucero CA, Oda G, Cox K, Maldonado F, Lombardo J, Wojcik R, Holodniy M. Enhanced health event detection and influenza surveillance using a joint Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense biosurveillance application. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2011;11:56.   

Second Prize: Peter W, Najmi AH, Burkom HS. Reducing false alarms in syndromic surveillance. Statistics in Medicine. 2011. 

Tie for Third Prize:  

• Finnell JT, Overhage JM, Grannis S. All Health Care is Not Local: An Evaluation of the Distribution of Emergency Department Care Delivered in Indiana. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2011;2011:409-416.
• Kay M, Zerr DM, Englund JA, Cadwell BL, Kuypers J, Swenson P, Kwan-Gett TS, Bell SL, Duchin JS. Shedding of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus among health care personnel, Seattle, Washington, USA. Emerg Infect Dis. 2011;17:639-644. 

Scientific Achievement Category   

First Prize: Gesteland PH, Livnat Y, Galli N, Samore MH, Gundlapalli AV. The EpiCanvas infectious disease weather map: an interactive visual exploration of temporal and spatial correlations. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA. 2012.    

Second Prize: Fine AM, Nizet V, Mandl KD. Improved diagnostic accuracy of group A streptococcal pharyngitis with use of real-time biosurveillance. Ann. Intern. Med. 2011;155(6):345-352. 

Tie for Third Prize:

• Hampton KH, Serre ML, Gesink DC, Pilcher CD, Miller WC. Adjusting for sampling variability in sparse data: geostatistical approaches to disease mapping. Int J Health Geogr. 2011;10:54.
• Que J, Tsui FC. Rank-based spatial clustering: an algorithm for rapid outbreak detection. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 2011;18(3):218.       

We congratulate all of the authors of the winning articles for this achievement.

Don’t miss the presentations by Dr. Cynthia Lucero-Obusan, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Dr. Per Hans Gesteland, University of Utah School of Medicine, at the 2012 ISDS Conference!

For more information about the 2012 Award, please visit the Award webpage.

July 2012 Literature Review Call

ISDS’s Research Committee hosted another great Literature Review yesterday, July 26, 2012! 


The ISDS Literature Review calls take place bi-monthly and are an opportunity to discuss new journal articles related to biosurveillance. Behind the scenes of the Literature Reviews, the Research Committee leadership meets weekly to narrow down the results of a Scopus search query (developed by Dr. Katie Suda, University of Tennessee) to the most relevant articles. The use of Scopus has improved the range of articles that we have been able to identify - capturing relevant papers from disciplines that were previously missed. Recently, the Literature Review organizers have taken another giant step towards a more efficient, organized, and user-friendly Literature Review process with the addition of a citation manager - Zotero. Using Zotero has not only increased the efficiency for the organizers, but for Literature Review attendees as well. Zotero allows participants to sort by title or author and to search for keywords using tags. We hope that you find Zotero useful for finding the article(s) that you are interested in!



Call Highlights:
The Research Committee gratefully acknowledges two authors for their participation in the July call: Dr. Andrew Fine, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Dr. Erika Samoff, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health. Both authors provided Literature Review participants with the invaluable opportunity to ask questions and learn more about their research. Brief summaries:


Dr. Andrew Fine and his colleagues wrote the article “Improved Diagnostic Accuracy of Group A Streptococcal Pharyngitis With Use of Real-Time Biosurveillance” published in Annals of Internal Medicine. This article highlighted the authors work in testing the benefit of adjusting the conventional Centor score for group A streptococcal pharyngitis using epidemiological data in the form of the recent local proportion positive (RLPP). They conclude that the number of additional true cases diagnosed and the number of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions avoided for false diagnoses demonstrates a distinct advantage to using the epidemiological information. 


Dr. Samoff and her colleagues authored the article “Integration of syndromic surveillance data into public health practice at state and local levels in north Carolina” published in Public Health Reports. This study sought to describe integration of syndromic surveillance data into daily surveillance practice at local health departments (LHDs). In order to achieve this objective, the authors compared the use of syndromic surveillance data and reportable disease data at the state and local levels. The authors conclude that, while the routine use of syndromic surveillance data by North Carolina state and local public health authorities resulted in meaningful public health action, the syndromic surveillance system is oriented towards sensitivity not efficiency. In the future, systems will need to be oriented towards efficiency in order to successfully incorporate new surveillance data into systems.


Other articles discussed:

• Venkatarao E, Patil RR, Prasad D, Anasuya A, Samuel R. Monitoring data quality in syndromic surveillance: Learnings from a resource limited setting. Journal of Global Infectious Diseases. 2012;4(2):120–127.
• Cowling BJ, Fang VJ, Nishiura H, et al. Increased risk of noninfluenza respiratory virus infections associated with receipt of inactivated influenza vaccine. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2012;54(12):1778–1783.
• Kohl KS, Arthur RR, O’Connor R, Fernandez J. Assessment of public health events through international health Regulations, United States, 2007-2011. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2012;18(7):1047–1053.
• Ribeiro SHR, Costa MA. Optimal selection of the spatial scan parameters for cluster detection: A simulation study. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology. 2012;3(2):107–120.

To view all of the article summaries, please visit the ISDS July 2012 Summaries Wiki.


You may also review the Literature Review archives here.


Written by Tera Reynolds, MPH, ISDS Program Manager.

Practice Fusion Releases New EMR Dataset and Data Challenges

On June 6th, Practice Fusion released a new HIPAA-compliant research dataset that includes de-identified medical records of lab results, diagnoses, medications, allergies, immunizations, smoking status, visits to the doctor, and vital signs. 

In conjunction with the release of this dataset, Practice Fusion is partnering with Kaggle, "the leading platform for predictive modeling competitions," to host two public health data challenges for developers, designers, data scientists and researchers.

Prediction Challenge: This two-part challenge encourages researchers to first submit a prediction problem based on the dataset provided by Practice Fusion. Once the winning prediction problem is selected, the challenge to will be open to the entire research community. Prediction problem ideas must be submitted by June 30, 2012. The prediction contest will then run from July 5, 2012 - September 10, 2012. 

Open Challenge: Competitors are encouraged to combine Practice Fusion's clinical dataset with one or more public datasets available at www.data.gov to create something new. This can be anything from a disease map, personal health app, or a new tool. Submissions are open until September 10, 2012. 

Access the newly available dataset and learn more about these two competitions here: http://www.kaggle.com/c/pf2012.

ISDS Summer Internship!

ISDS is looking for a summer intern who is a current MPH student who will lead the research, writing, and dissemination of an ISDS policy brief. Pass this information along to anyone you think may be interested in applying. Please note that the application deadline is April 1st. 

ISDS Summer Internship Description

Title:                                       ISDS Summer Intern

Organization:                       International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS)

Address:                               26 Lincoln Avenue, Suite #3

                                                Brighton, MA 02135

Website:                                http://www.syndromic.org

Agency description:           The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2005 and dedicated to the improvement of population health by advancing the science and practice of disease surveillance. ISDS’s membership represents public health professionals, healthcare providers, researchers, government officials, and others engaged in national and international health surveillance initiatives. We facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and promote and conduct research, education, and advocacy. 

Internship description:        Disease surveillance is at a crossroads fueled by the advent of new technologies for data collection, management, and application, and shaped by changing demands on the public health workforce. ISDS would like to develop a policy brief and advocacy plan that will help to set the stage for the next stage of public health surveillance. This intern project will engage an MPH student in working with ISDS staff, members, and the Board of Directors to identify key issues related to public health surveillance research, practice, and policy; and to lead the research and writing of a policy brief. The intern will also be responsible for developing a dissemination plan for distributing the brief to the broader surveillance community, as well as to key stakeholders and decision makers.

Specific Responsibilities include:  

• Research policy issues related to public health surveillance 
• Writing of policy brief and advocacy plan  
• Develop dissemination plan to distribute policy brief to the broader surveillance community  
• Policy analysis

Minimum Skills Required:  

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent (preferably in biological or social science discipline).
• Current MPH student.  
• Proficiency with social media and other electronic and web-based communications vehicles.  
• Strong interpersonal skills with a positive, “can-do” attitude.  
• Capable of working independently and cooperatively as a team member in a fast-paced environment.  
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and deadline driven.  
• Eager to learn new and improve upon current skills.  
• Proficiency using MS Office for Mac and the following software within an Apple Mac OSX environment is preferred: Mail, iCal, and Address Book.

Estimated start/end date:  June 2012 – August 2012 (flexible)

Hours/Week:                         Approximately 10 hours/week

Application deadline:          April 1, 2012

Number of students:                      1

Is a car necessary?                        No

Stipend:                                 Yes, if not applying for credit.

To apply:                                Submit a resume and a cover letter to: careers@syndromic.org by April 1, 2012.  Please put “ISDS Summer Internship” and your last name in the Subject line. ISDS requires pre-employment reference checks. ISDS is an equal opportunity employer.

Field Supervisor:                 Laura Streichert, PhD, MPH

                                               Executive Director

Now Available: Introduction to the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) Webinar Recording and Slides

If you missed the January 31st webinar entitled "Introduction to the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) and Its Potential Uses in Syndromic Surveillance", you may now download a pdf of the presentation slides or view a recording of the webinar below. You may also visit the webinar page in the ISDS webinar archives to learn more about the presenters and the information that was discussed.

ISDS would like to thank the presenters Dr. Clay Mann, Gamunu Wijetunge, and Bernice Boursiquot for their wonderful and informative presentation. If you would like to learn more about NEMSIS, create your own customizable report of EMS data, or get updated on the latest NEMSIS news visit www.NEMSIS.org.

ISDS members in the News

ISDS Board Director John Brownstein and ISDS member Rumi Chunara discussed the use of social media to track the outbreak of infectious diseases in a recent CNN Health article entitled "Tracking Infectious Disease on Twitter". Working with HealthMap.org and researchers at Harvard Medical School, Brownstein and Chunara described the results of using Twitter searches to analyze the 2011 cholera outbreak in Haiti.


This research found that the data derived retrospectively from social media outlets, such as Twitter, correlated with health ministry case reports. During specific times of the outbreak, such as the first incident of cholera, the social media data closely reflected the real outbreak. 


John Brownstein discussed the potential of using social media searches as a real-time tool that could influence the type of prevention used in future outbreaks. This type of disease tracking may be particularly useful in resource-poor setting like Haiti, where it is difficult to collect a lot of data early on during outbreaks.


Read the full article on the CNN Health website. 

Published Joint Statistical Meetings Proceedings Papers

View two recently published 2011 JSM Proceedings papers about the Distribute project. 

Analytic Evaluation of a Standardization Effort for the DISTRIBUTE Emergency Department Surveillance Project

• Howard Burkom, Donald Olson, Atar Baer, Marc Paladini, Debra Revere, Anne McIntyre

Generation of Prediction Intervals to Assess Data Quality in the Distribute System Using Quantile Regression

• Ian Painter, Julie Eaton, Don Olson, Debra Revere, Bill Lober