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Storm Bill

In February, ISDS and the BioSense Redesign Team hosted a Webinar on winter weather surveillance. Now, as the weather becomes warmer, we invite you to learn about what two midwestern states do for heat-related illness (HRI) surveillance. Fatema Mamou and Bill Storm, epidemiologists from Michigan and Ohio, will describe how they conduct HRI surveillance and what they do with the information once it's gathered. They will focus on multiple methodologies and systems, including their states' home syndromic surveillance systems as well as BioSense 2.0.

Whether you are planning on attending the ISDS Conference for the first time this December or you have been attending since 2002, the ISDS Scientific Program Committee invites you to discover the 2013 ISDS Conference! This webinar will highlight the abstract submission process, new abstract submission type, and the Pre-Conference Workshops. The webinar will include brief overviews by Scientific Program Committee Chair, Wayne Loschen, and Pre-Conference Workshop Planning Chair, Bill Storm, and will be followed by an informal question and answer session.

There is a significant body of literature on the use of social media for monitoring ailments such as influenza-like illness1 and cholera,2 as well as public opinions on topics such as vaccination.3 In general, these studies have shown that social media correlates well with official data sources,1,2,3 with the trends identifiable before official data are available.2 However, less is known about the impact of integrating social media into public health practice, and resulting interventions. Therefore, the ISDS Social Media for Disease Surveillance Workgroup initiated a systematic literature review on the use of social media for actionable biosurveillance.

Objective

The objective of this study is to systematically review the literature on the use of social media for biosurveillance in order to evaluate whether this data source can improve public health practice or community health outcomes.

Submitted by elamb on

The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) community comprises a large pool of global expertise. Essential to the ISDS mission of advancing the science and practice of disease surveillance is understanding and setting priorities for research and best practices in public health monitoring. To this end, an ISDS workgroup developed an online survey to identify and prioritize the technical and policy issues of the ISDS community. Through analysis, the Survey will identify respondents' perceptions of opportunities in the area of analytical methodologies.

Objective

The objective of the '2013 Biosurveillance Technical Opportunity Prioritization Survey' (Survey) is to gather input from the ISDS community on the current landscape and prioritization of data sources and analytical issues in the field of biosurveillance.

Submitted by elamb on

The ability to estimate and characterize the burden of disease on a population is important for all public health events, including extreme heat events. Preparing for such events is critical to minimize the associated morbidity and mortality [1, 2]. Since there are delays in obtaining hospital discharge or death records, monitoring of ED visits is the timeliest and an inexpensive method for surveillance of HRI [1]. Aside from air temperature, other environmental variables are used to issue heat advisories based on the heat index, including humidity and wind [3]. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between HRI ED visits and weather variables as predictors, in Ohio.

Objective

Correlation and linear regression analyses were completed to evaluate the relationship between a heat-related illness (HRI) classifier using emergency department (ED) chief complaint data and specific weather variables as predictors, in Ohio.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

The ISDS Research Committee (RC) is an interdisciplinary group of researchers interested in various topics related to disease surveillance. The RC hosts a literature review process with a permanent repository of relevant journal articles and bimonthly calls that provide a forum for discussion and author engagement. The calls have led to workgroups and society-wide events, boosted interest in the ISDS Conference, and fostered networking among participants. Since 2007, the RC has identified and classified published articles using an automated search method with the aim of progressing ISDS’s mission of advancing the science and practice of disease surveillance by fostering collaboration and increasing awareness of innovations in the field of surveillance. The RC literature review efforts have provided an opportunity for interprofessional collaboration and have resulted in a repository of over 1,000 articles, but feedback from ISDS members indicated relevant articles were not captured by the existing methodology. The method of automated literature retrieval was thus refined to improve efficiency and inclusiveness of stakeholder interests.

 Objective

To improve the method of automated retrieval of surveillance-related literature from a wide range of indexed repositories.

Submitted by uysz on

Whether you are planning on attending the ISDS Annual Conference for the first time this December or you have been attending since 2002, the ISDS Scientific Program Committee invites you to discover the 2012 ISDS Conference! This webinar will highlight the abstract submission process, new abstract submission types, and the Pre-Conference Workshops. The webinar will include a brief overview by Scientific Program Committee Chair, Amy Ising, and Pre-Conference Planning Chair, Bill Storm, and will be followed by an informal question and answer session.

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