Call for Abstracts: International Society for Disease Surveillance Annual Conference
The ISDS Annual Conference is the premier event dedicated to the advancement of the science and practice of biosurveillance. This year’s theme, Expanding Collaborations to Chart a New Course in Public Health Surveillance, will highlight the importance of working together across agencies, sectors, and disciplines to improve surveillance methods and population health outcomes. The conference will be held at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina in San Diego, CA, December 4-5, 2012, with Pre-Conference Workshops on December 3rd.
The ISDS Conference draws professionals from a broad range of disciplines— epidemiology and computer science to mathematical modeling and health policy—to learn and contribute the latest achievements, methodologies, best practices, conceptual frameworks, and technical innovations in the rapidly evolving field of biosurveillance. This year's conference will provide fertile ground for cultivating new ideas and partnerships with roundtable discussions, panels and other opportunities to collaborate.
The scope of this conference includes all of the components, policies, methods, practices, infrastructure, research and evaluation related to timely surveillance of communicable diseases, chronic diseases and injuries. This includes notifiable conditions, adverse events and emerging/novel threats; biological, chemical, and radiological health threats; plant, animal, and food surveillance; and environmental monitoring.
Questions regarding the Call for Abstracts may be sent to Tera Reynolds, ISDS Program Manager.
Submission deadline: September 6, 2012 (11:59pm Eastern Daylight Time)
Authors notified of acceptance: October 3, 2012
Pre-Conference Workshops: December 3, 2012
Annual Conference: December 4-5, 2012
Submission Types
Note: All abstracts for the ISDS Conference will be submitted using ScholarOne. There is a limit of 4810 characters for the text of your submission. The character count includes spaces. The character count WILL include title, authors, institutions, tables, and images, but WILL NOT include presenting author brief biographical summaries (bios) or the abstract summary that will be used in the conference program.
Oral
All abstracts submitted for oral presentation are automatically considered for poster presentation as well. Include the following components when submitting an abstract for oral presentation:
· Title (85 characters MAX)
· Objective
· Introduction
· Methods
· Results
· Conclusions
· Acknowledgements
· References
· Names and affiliations of authors
· Brief bio of lead author/intended presenter (450 characters/75 words)
· Brief summary (600 characters/100 words) of submission to be used in conference program
Poster
Include the following components when submitting an abstract for poster presentation:
· Title (85 characters MAX)
· Objective
· Introduction
· Methods
· Results
· Conclusions
· Acknowledgements
· References
· Names and affiliations of authors
· Brief bio of lead author/intended presenter (450 characters/75 words)
· Brief summary (600 characters/100 words) of submission (for potential inclusion in conference program)
Panel *New for 2012*
Panel topics should be a specific aspect of design, theory, application, or experience pertaining to the science or practice of biosurveillance. Suggested panels should be comprised of no more than four participants and a moderator. A typical panel session will consist of four 15 minute presentations, each followed by 5 minutes of questions, with 10 minutes for closing discussion (presentation lengths will be subject to change based on final agenda). When submitting an abstract for a panel, include the following components:
· Title (85 characters MAX)
· Objective
· Introduction
· Panel description
· How the moderator intends to engage the audience in discussions on the panel topic
· Names of panel presenters, moderator and affiliations
· Brief bios for each panel presenter and moderator (450 characters/75 words each) for abstract reviewers to assess appropriateness to serve on the panel for the described topic
· Brief summary (600 characters/100 words) of panel to be used in conference program
Roundtable *New for 2012*
Roundtables can have up to three facilitators to briefly introduce the topic of interest and facilitate active discussion among attendees. Roundtables must be discussion-oriented rather than didactic, lecture-driven sessions. Roundtable discussions will be 60-90 minutes (depending on final agenda). When submitting an abstract for a roundtable, include the following components:
· Title (85 characters MAX)
· Objective
· Introduction
· Roundtable description
· How the facilitator intends to engage the audience in the roundtable discussion, including sample questions
· Names of facilitators and affiliations
· Brief bios for each facilitator (450 characters/75 words each) for abstract reviewers to assess appropriateness to lead a discussion on the described topic
· Brief summary (600 characters/100 words) of roundtable to be used in conference program
System Showcase Demonstrations *New for 2012*
System showcase demonstrations will be presented during the evening poster session on the first day of the conference. A typical demonstration will illustrate one or more aspects of an innovative population/public health surveillance system that is in use or under development. Demonstrations of open source and/or free products are strongly encouraged. System showcase demonstrations are not intended to be marketing or sales presentations and such submissions will be rejected; those interested in supporting the ISDS conference with an exhibit booth should contact Tera Reynolds at ISDS for more information. When submitting an abstract for a system showcase demonstration, include the following components:
· Title (85 characters MAX)
· Objective
· Introduction
· Description, highlighting benefits to public/population health surveillance and how this demonstration will be a unique addition to the ISDS conference
· Conclusions, including lessons learned and design principles from this demonstration that attendees can take away, even if not using or intending to use the system demonstrated
· Names of demonstrators and affiliations
· Brief summary (600 characters/100 words) of showcase to be used in conference program
Track Descriptions
I. Analytical Methods
a. Analytical Methods: Applied
b. Analytical Methods: Research & Development
This theme is focused on important and novel advances in the field of surveillance methodologies and analytical approaches. Abstracts in the Applied sub-track should describe methods or processes routinely used in a production-type environment. Abstracts in the Research and Development sub-track should describe methods and processes still under development or tested within a research or pilot setting. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· Analytic evaluation of surveillance components
· Decision support
· Estimating morbidity and impact
· Evaluation of algorithms and systems through epidemic simulation
· Geospatial analysis
· Innovative use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology
· Integrating evidence from multiple sources
· Integration of mathematical modeling and statistical analyses
· New algorithms and evaluation of existing algorithms for cluster and event detection
· Pattern recognition algorithms
· Predictive disease modeling/predictive analytics
· Spatial cluster detection
· Statistical methods and tools for analyzing and interpreting data
· Time series analysis
II. Informatics
a. Informatics: Applied
b. Informatics: Research & Development
Abstracts in the Applied sub-track should describe methods or processes routinely used in a production-type environment. Abstracts in the Research and Development sub-track should describe methods and processes still under development or tested within a research or pilot setting. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· Advances in methods for classifying data
· Approaches to building interoperable surveillance systems and components
· Borderless data exchange models (e.g. federated information sharing approaches)
· Cloud computing for public health surveillance
· Data integration – acquiring, moving, storing, processing, coding, normalizing, and preparing data for analysis between systems
· Data quality
· Data visualization methods
· Electronic health records and public health surveillance
· Health information exchange
· How clinical information systems can support public health surveillance efforts
· How public health information systems can support clinical efforts
· Informatics lessons learned
· Information and knowledge exchange
· Innovations in public health informatics
· Mobile technologies for public health
· Natural language processing
· Standards and Interoperability Framework (Public Health Reporting Initiative)
· Standards used in public health surveillance
· System architectures for limited connectivity environments and disaster surveillance
· System architectures for surveillance in low-resource environments
· System architectures to leverage HIE for public health surveillance
· System descriptions of real-world solutions to challenging integration problems
· Workforce requirements and training
· Use of social media for biosurveillance
III. Policy (at local, state, federal, international levels)
This theme is focused on sharing successes, challenges or approaches leveraged in the use or development of policy which affects biosurveillance operations and activities. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· Creating successful surveillance partnerships
· Data sharing policies
· Federal policy agendas
· Funding strategies for surveillance
· How public health surveillance data have been used to inform policy
· International Health Regulations
· Legal/ethical/security/privacy issues in surveillance
· Meaningful Use responses by public health departments
· Policies around social media/leveraging social networks for risk communication, etc.
· Research collaborations to expand evidence-based health policy
· Workforce
IV. Public/Population health surveillance
a. Public/Population Health Surveillance: Practice
b. Public/Population Health Surveillance: Research
c. Public/Population Health Surveillance: Evaluation
This theme is focused on improving the daily processes of timely public/population health surveillance, including detection, signal validation, event characterization, investigation, and response. Abstracts in the Practice sub-track should describe practices routinely used in a production environment and/or deployed in field by public health departments or other agencies. Abstracts in the Research sub-track should describe research related to surveillance, health systems, etc. Abstracts in the Evaluation sub-track should describe evaluations of public/population health surveillance systems, workflows, protocols, etc. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
· Adverse drug events and pharmacovigilance
· Case studies
· Chronic disease surveillance
· Collaboration success stories
· Contact tracing and network analysis
· Disaster/event surveillance
· Disparities surveillance
· Evaluation of surveillance systems
· Infectious disease surveillance
· Influenza-like illness surveillance
· Injury surveillance
· Innovations in biosurveillance
· Integrating surveillance across multiple data sources
· Integrating surveillance systems, e.g. syndromic and reportable diseases
· Linking response with frontline health workers
· Meaningful Use and how it’s changing/not changing surveillance practice
· Measuring vaccine efficacy, coverage, etc.
· Messaging/risk communication (what to say to the public, politicians and media about syndromic systems alerts)
· Mobile technologies for public health
· Novel approaches to communicable diseases surveillance and reporting (e.g., notifiable conditions, MRSA, nosocomial infections)
· OneHealth
· Outbreak detection, characterization and outbreak management
· School and university surveillance
· Situational awareness
· Social media and surveillance
· Surveillance across borders
· Surveillance for refugees and recent immigrants
· Surveillance in resource-limited settings
· Surveillance using ambulatory care data
· Surveillance using inpatient data
· Vaccine-preventable disease surveillance
