New Challenges for Analysis in Public Health Surveillance: BioSense

• Activity Number: 323
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Cmte on Statisticians in Defense and National Security
• Author(s): Henry R. Rolka*+
• Companies: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Keywords: bioterrorism ; surveillance ; syndrome ; public health

Abstract

The growing abundance and use of administrative data, automated electronic reporting, surveillance integration efforts, and novel methods for data analysis have all engendered broad new requirements for analyzing surveillance data and incorporating statistical evidence into decision-making. This effect is amplified by the threat of bioterrorism and poses formidable new demands for interdisciplinary cooperation among scientists and technologists to develop mechanisms that accomplish useful public health surveillance. As coordination efforts for knowledge management and system interoperability across the broad spectrum of new decision support activities evolve, it is important to focus development and evaluation of analytic components in order to maintain effectiveness for the long term. An overview of CDC's BioSense Initiative will be provided along with a description of its data and analytic components. The objective is to motivate the practical data analysis and statistical challenges, describe some of the ways we're addressing these challenges and to elicit feedback for refining future analytic directions in this important public health activity.