2015 Pre-Conference Trainings – International Society for Disease Surveillance

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The pre-conference trainings are community-generated professional development opportunities that address the needs of the biosurveillance workforce, and take place in coordination with the annual ISDS conference. In 2015, Pre-Conference trainings will be held on December 8, 2015 in Denver, CO, USA at the Marriott City Center. 

Pre-Conference Tracks:

Track 1: Biosurveillance for Beginners

This training will provide exposure to key topics central to biosurveillance and serve to orient those who are new to the field. The objective of Track 1 is enable participants to better understand and apply public health data for informed and meaningful decision-making and to communicate outcomes or results. This track includes an overview of biosurveillance, as well as demonstrations of varied data sources including emergency department and inpatient data and their application to daily biosurveillance practice in the United States. Additional presentations will focus on ICD-10-CM coding and the impact on public health surveillance, syndromic surveillance for non-communicable disease surveillance, and the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-Based Epidemics (ESSENCE).

Track 2: Introduction to R for Biosurveillance

The public health workforce (public health practitioners, healthcare providers, and academicians in research settings) require data, as well as analysis and visualization of the data, to enable and provide informed decision-making, whether clinically-based or policy-based. Continued budgetary restrictions and funding cuts have hindered the ability to purchase commercial products and applications; therefore, public health has a strong need for exposure to and training with open-source products and tools for data collection, analysis, and visualization. R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics (http://www.r-project.org/). It provides a variety of statistical and graphical techniques and is extensible. As an open-source product, R is freely available, making it optimal for use in a variety of settings. This training is a hands-on introduction to R for epidemiology, biosurveillance, and high-quality data visualizations.

Track 3: Advanced Use of R for Biosurveillance

The public health workforce (public health practitioners, healthcare providers, and academicians in research settings) require data, as well as analysis and visualization of the data, to enable and provide informed decision-making, whether clinically-based or policy-based. Continued budgetary restrictions and funding cuts have hindered the ability to purchase commercial products and applications; therefore, public health has a strong need for exposure to and training with open-source products and tools for data collection, analysis, and visualization. R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics (http://www.r-project.org/). It provides a variety of statistical and graphical techniques and is extensible. As an open-source product, R is freely available, making it optimal for use in a variety of settings. This training is intended for users who already have a good understanding of R and are seeking additional training in using R for epidemiology, biosurveillance, and high-quality data visualizations.

Track 4: Biosurveillance in the One Health Context

In recent years, global public health security has been threatened by zoonotic disease emergence, as exemplified by outbreaks of H5N1, H1N1, SARS, and, most recently, Ebola. Indeed, the majority of emerging infectious diseases in humans has an animal origin. This underscores the need to consider human, animal, and environmental health in a coordinated One Health approach. One Health Surveillance (OHS) is the continuous, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health-related data from multiple disciplines to inform collaborative planning, implementation, and evaluation to achieve optimal health for people, animals, and the environment. The intent of this workshop is to develop a practical understanding of the role of OHS. The workshop will present real world examples of OHS solutions. Participants will engage in a process aimed at identifying health problems that benefit from OHS, discuss solutions to these problems, determine the data and information needed to support these solutions and identify facilitators, obstacles for solutions, as well as impacts of their solutions on multiple domains.

Track 5: Assessing the Current State of Biosurveillance and Examining Future Initiatives

This track is designed for participants who have some or significant experience working with syndromic surveillance systems and will cover a variety of topics, from the current state of syndromic surveillance (including a closer look at Meaningful Use and adoption of different data streams), to a novel data sharing initiative within ESSENCE and a suite of apps being developed for biosurveillance by the Defense community. Short presentations of the various topics will lead into an opportunity for participants to discuss these important issues with their peers from around the world.