The first National Syndromic Surveillance Conference was held at The New York Academy of Medicine. Over 400 public health practitioners, academics, physicians, computer scientists, statisticians and lawyers from all over the world attended the conference on September 23-24th. This timely and important conference provided a forum for participants to define the rapidly evolving science of syndromic surveillance, review and evaluate existing systems and discuss methodolgies, opportunities and challenges in this emerging field. Topics that were covered included:

• Surveillance within the context of national and local public health
• Draft CDC guidelines for evaluating syndromic surveillance systems
• Model syndromic surveillance systems
• Temporal and temporal-spatial outbreak detection
• Potential non-traditional data sources
• Syndromic surveillance systems with dedicated data collection
• Data transfer, warehousing and information technology
• Legal mandate and confidentiality
• Investigation of syndromic alarms

• Speaker Presentations
• Session 1: Introduction, Overview and Context
• Welcome and Overview of Conference - David Vlahov, New York Academy of Medicine & Paula Olsiewski, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Putting Syndromic Surveillance into Context (National Preparedness) - Margaret Hamburg, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Washington, D.C.
• Putting Syndromic Surveillance into Context (Public Health) - Michael T. Osterholm , University of Minnesota
• Session 2: Draft Framework for Evaluating Syndromic Surveillance Systems
• Draft Framework for Evaluating Syndromic Surveillance Systems - Dan Sosin, CDC
• Session 3: Model Syndromic Surveillance Systems
• Enhanced Public Health Surveillance - the Real-time Outbreak and Disease Surveillance System - Jeremy Espino, University of Pittsburgh
• Syndromic Surveillance in New York City - Farzad Mostashari, NYC DOHMH
• Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community - Based Epidemics II (ESSENCE II) - Joe Lombardo, Johns Hopkins University
• Session 4: Temporal Methodologies and Data Sources
• Temporal Methodologies and Data Sources - Henry Rolka, CDC
• What's Strange About Recent Events? (WSARE): Efficient Algorithms for Detecting Significant Irregularities in General Biosurveillance Data - Andrew Moore, Carnegie Mellon University
• Aberration Detection Methods for Influenza-Like Illness - William Thompson, CDC
• Centers for Disease Control, Early Abberation Reporting System (EARS) - Lori Hutwagner, CDC
• Session 5: Temporal - Spatial Methodologies and Data Sources
• Generalized Linear Mixed Models for Detecting Incident Spatial Clusters of Disease - Ken Kleinman, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
• The Use of Interpoint Distances in Biosurveillance Data to Increase Vigilance to Bioterrorism - Marcello Pagano, Harvard School of Public Health
• The Spatial and Temporal Scan Statistics in Practice: Emergency Department Chief Complaint Data, New York City - Rick Heffernan, NYC DOHMH
• Session 7: Syndromic Surveillance in a Local Health Dept: Are the resources required worth the potential benefits?
• Syndromic Surveillance in a Local Health Dept: Are the resources required worth the potential benefits? - Marcelle Layton, NYC DOHMH
• Session 8: Syndromic Surveillance Systems with Dedicated Data Collection
• Overview of Enhanced Surveillance Activities with CDC, State, and Local Partnerships - Mitch Wolfe, CDC
• Syndromic Surveillance for the 2001 World Series in Arizona - Ken Komatsu, Arizona Department of Health
• The Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance System of Louisiana - Stacy Hall, Louisiana Office of Public Health
• Session 9: Legal Mandate and Confidentiality
• Electronic Health Information: Protecting Health and Confidentiality - Claire Broome, CDC
• The Legal Underpinnings of Syndromic Surveillance - Wilfredo Lopezs, NYC DOHMH
• Session 10: Other Data Sources, Other Legal Issues
• Video and Click-Stream Data as Surveillance Tools - Elaine Newton, Carnegie Mellon and RAND
• Syndromic Surveillance Using Minimum Transfer of Identifiable Data - Richard Platt, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
• Early Detection and the Law - Deanna Mool, Sorling, Northrup, Hanna, Cullen and Cochran, Ltd.
• Rapid Syndromic Validation Project - Alan Zelicoff
• Data Privacy Project - Latanya Sweeney, Carnegie Mellon University
• Biological Defense Initiative - Lorna VanderZanden, CDC
• Session 11: Data Transfer and Transformation
• Data Transfer and Transformation - John Loonsk, CDC
• Collecting Data from Heterogenous Sources - Bill Lober, University of Washington
• Issues in Data Acquisition and Management - New York City ED Syndromic Surveillance System - Adam Karpati, NYC DOHMH
• Session 12: The Public Health Response to Syndromic Surveillance Signals
• Session 13: Closing Remarks
• Closing Remarks - Thomas Frieden, NYC DOHMH
• Poster Presentations
• The Frontlines of Medicine Project: A Proposal for the Standardized Communication of Emergency Department Data for Public Health Uses Including Syndromic Surveillance for Biological and Chemical Terrorism - E. N. Barthell et al.
• Foodborne Outbreak Syndromic Surveillance - P. C. Bartlett et al.
• A Comparison of Syndromic Incidence Data Collected by Triage Nurses in Santa Clara County with Regional Infectious Disease Data - D.M. Bravata et al.
• Surveillance Systems for Bioterrorism Detection: A Systematic Review - D.M. Bravata et al.
• The Bio-Surveillance Analysis, Feedback, Evaluation and Response (B-SAFER) System - J.C. Brillman et al.
• Identification and Investigation of Disease Outbreaks Generated by ESSENCE - K.K. Brown
• A Knowledge-Based Method for Surveillance - D. L. Buckeridge et al.
• Temporal Alerting Algorithm Methodology for ESSENCE Syndromic Surveillance Data - H. Burkom et al.
• Syndromic Surveillance from Free-text Triage Chief Complaints: Evaluation of a Natural Language Processing System before Deployment in the Winter Olympics - W. W. Chapman et al.
• Syndromic surveillance based on the emergency department in Korea - J.P. Cho et al.
• Real-time Biosurveillance Using an Existing Emergency Department Electronic Medical Record Database - D. Cochrane et al.
• Planning Syndromic Surveillance for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games: A Pilot Study - U. Dafni et al. -- handout
• The City of Baltimore's Multifaceted Bioterrorism Surveillance System - N. Dambita et al.
• Enhanced Emergency Department Surveillance System Following the World Trade Disaster - New York City, September 14 to October 10, 2001 - D. Das et al.
• Syndromic surveillance: an applied tool for monitoring health effects of Colorado wildfires, Summer 2002 - A.J. Davidson et al.
• The Use of Hospital Emergency Department Chief Complaint Data As A "Near" Real-Time Marker For Assessing Public Health Risk of Infectious Disease Outbreak - M. Davisson
• Connecticut Hospital Admissions Syndromic Surveillance (HASS) - Z. Dembek et al.
• Department of Defense Pharmacy Data: A Prescription for the Surveillance of Respiratory and Gastrointestinal Illness - S. Eader et al.
• Development of an Alternative Surveillance Alert Program (ASAP): Syndromic Surveillance of Gastrointestinal Illness Using Pharmacy Over-the-Counter Sales - V. L. Edge et al.
• Biosurveillance Applying Scan Statistics with Multiple, Disparate Data Sources - E. Elbert et al.
• New Hampshire Syndromic Surveillance Project - Successful System for a Small State - K. Fallon
• The Milwaukee Biosurveillance Project: Real-time Syndromic Surveillance Using Regional Secure Internet - S. Foldy et al.
• Case Studies of Off-The-Shelf GIS Technologies in Syndromic Surveillance - G. Glass et al.
• A Day at the Races: Community-Wide Syndromic Surveillance During the 2002 Kentucky Derby Festival - L Goss et al.
• A Knowledge-Based Approach to Defining Syndromes - J. V. Graham et al.
• Use of Simulation Techniques to Evaluate the Efficacy of Syndrome Surveillance Systems to Detect Bioterrorist Attacks - M. S. Green et al.
• Clinical Validation Study of the EMS 911 Syndromic Surveillance System of Bioterrorism in New York City - J. Greenko et al.
• Using Electronic Healthcare Reimbursement Claims to Detect Local, Regional, and National Infectious Disease Outbreaks - J. R. Greenspan et al.
• Using Autoregressive Epidemic Modeling to Augment the Existing Department of Defense (DoD) Febrile Respiratory Illness Surveillance System at Military Training Centers - A. W. Hawksworth et al.
• Application of Bioterrorism Surveillance Methods in San Diego County - J. M. Johnson et al.
• An Elliptic Spatial Scan Statistic and it's Application to Breast Cancer Mortality Data in North-Eastern United States - M. Kulldorff et al.
• Space-time Disease Map Surveillance with Extensions to Bioterrorism - A. Lawson
• Implementing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Enhanced Surveillance Project (ESP): A Front-Line Perspective from the Knox County, TN Health Department - B. Lawson et al.
• What's Wrong with Evaluating "Syndromic Surveillance"? - S. MacDonald
• Data Source Comparisons - S. Magruder et al.
• A Comparison of Military Surveillance Systems for Early Detection of Naturally Occurring and Bioterrorism-based Epidemics of Febrile Respiratory Illness - N. Marsden-Haug et al.
• Integration of an Automated Reporting System in Infectious Disease Surveillance in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania - N. M. M'ikanatha et al.
• Syndromic Surveillance for Bioterrorism: An Algorithm for Rapid Detection of Influenza Like Illness and Bioterrorism-related Outbreaks - B. Miller et al.
• "Med-X"- A Model Medical Examiner Surveillance Program For Bioterrorism Mortality - K. B. Nolte et al.
• Synoptic and Network Syndromic Surveillance for Arbitrarily Shaped Clusters - G. P. Patil et al.
• The Use of Existing Electronic Hospital Data for Syndromic Surveillance - D. Peterson et al.
• Metadata Standards for Non-Traditional Health Data Sources - Z. Pincus et al.
• Conceptual Models: Definitions, Construction, and Applications in Public Health Surveillance - R. Richesson et al.
• Cumulative Sum Methods for Spatial Syndromic Surveillance - P. A. Rogerson
• The Efficacy of a Triage Expert System as an Automated Data Collection Tool for Syndromic Surveillance - SJ Schueler et al.
• Partial evaluation of an automated bioterrorism surveillance system in Phoenix, Arizona - M. Schumacher et al.
• Syndromic Surveillance and Risk Management using MGPS - A. Szarfman
• Web-based Japanese Syndromic Surveillance for FIFA World Cup 2002 - S. Suzuki et al.
• Use of an Electronic Emergency Department Information System as a Data Source for Respiratory Syndrome Surveillance - J. M. Townes et al.
• Proceedings
• The conference proceedings were published in a special Supplement to the Journal of Urban Health - June 2003. PDFs from this issue are available bellow.
• Editorial - Syndromic Surveillance: A Local Perspective - Farzad Mostashari and Jessica J. Hartman
• Articles
• DRAFT FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS - Daniel M. Sosin
• STATUTORY BASIS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTING BEYOND SPECIFIC DISEASES - Claire V. Broome, Heather H. Horton, Deborah Tress, Salvatore J. Lucido and Denise Koo
• SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE USING MINIMUM TRANSFER OF IDENTIFIABLE DATA: THE EXAMPLE OF THE NATIONAL BIOTERRORISM SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM - Richard Platt, Carmella Bocchino, Blake Caldwell, Robert Harmon, Ken Kleinman, Ross Lazarus, Andrew F. Nelson, James D. Nordin and Debra P. Ritzwoller
• A SYSTEMS OVERVIEW OF THE ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOR THE EARLY NOTIFICATION OF COMMUNITY-BASED EPIDEMICS (ESSENCE II) - Joseph Lombardo, howard Burkom, Eugene Elbert, Steven Magruder, Sheryl Happel Lewis, Wayne Loschen, James Sari, Carol Sniegoski, Richard Wojcik and Julie Pavlin
• BIOSURVEILLANCE APPLYING SCAN STATISTICS WITH MULTIPLE, DISPARATE DATA SOURCES - Howard S. Burkom
• USE OF AMBULANCE DISPATCH DATA AS AN EARLY WARNING SYSTEM FOR COMMUNITY-WIDE INFLUENZA-LIKE ILLNESS, NEW YORK CITY - Farzad Mostashari, Annie Fine, Debjani Das, John Adams, Marcelle Layton
• CLINICAL EVALUATION OF THE EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES (EMS) AMBULANCE DISPATCH-BASED SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM, NEW YORK CITY - Jane Greenko, Farzad Mostashari, Annie Fine and Marci Layton
• WSARE: WHAT'S STRANGE ABOUT RECENT EVENTS? - Weng-Keen Wong, Andrew Moore, Gregory Cooper and Michael Wagner
• ENHANCED DROP-IN SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE IN NEW YORK CITY FOLLOWING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 - Debjani Das, Don Weiss, Farzad Mostashari, Tracee Treadwell, Jennifer McQuiston, Lori Hutwagner, Adam Karpati, Katherine Bornschlegel, Matthew Seeman, ReinaTurcios, Pauline Terebuh, Robin Curtis, Richard Heffernan and Sharon Balter
• THE BIOTERRORISM PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE EARLY ABERRATION REPORTING SYSTEMS (EARS) - Lori Hutwagner, William Thompson, G Matthew Seeman and Tracee Treadwell
• SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE USING AUTOMATED COLLECTION OF COMPUTERIZED DISCHARGE DIAGNOSES - Bill Lober, Lisa Trigg, Bryant Karras, David Bliss, Jack Ciliberti, Laurie Stewart and Jeff Duchin
• INVESTIGATION OF DISEASE OUTBREAKS DETECTED BY "SYNDROMIC" SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS - Julie A Pavlin
• EPIDEMIOLOGICAL RESPONSE TO SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE SIGNALS - Jeffrey S. Duchin
• NEW YORK CITY AND STATE LEGAL AUTHORITIES RELATED TO SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE - Wilfredo Lopez
• Abstracts
• Section I - SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE USING EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT DATA
• Section II - EVENT BASED SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS
• Section III - DATA TRANSFER AND TRANSFORMATION
• Section IV - STATISTICAL METHODOLOGIES
• Section V - GENERAL POSTER PRESENTATIONS
• Speaker and Moderator Information
• Speaker & Moderator Biographies