National Public Health Surveillance
A Presentation to the Biosurveillance Workgroup November 9, 2006
Perry Smith, M.D. James Hadler, M.D. John Abellera Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
CSTE
• Professional association of over 1000 public health epidemiologists from all 50 states , 8 territories, and Puerto Rico • Long close working relationship with CDC to improve public health • For over 50 years, responsibility for developing a systematic method of identifying and defining communicable diseases to be reported nationally
• Primary mission to support the use of effective public health surveillance and good epidemiologic practice through training, capacity development, and peer consultation…
CSTE Public Health Informatics Team
Chair CSTE Staff
Workgroups Electronic Lab Reporting
NEDSS and Architecture Surveillance Coordination Group Liaisons Epi-X (including HAN/LDAP) ASTHO Informatics Outbreak Management System Analysis, Visualization & Reporting
Perry Smith (NY) John Abellera (National Office)
Mike Davisson (WA) Tom Safranek (NE) Steve Macdonald (WA)
Bob Rolfs (UT) Larry Hanrahan (WI) Marion Kainer (TN) Lesliann Helmus (VA)
Public Health Data Standards Consortium Perry Smith (NY)
Nationally Notifiable Disease Surveillance Background
• A notifiable disease is one for which regular, frequent, and timely information on individual cases is considered necessary for prevention and control • Not all notifiable diseases are amenable to case definitions (e.g., “outbreak or unusual disease”) • Reporting is typically to local and state HDs with identifiers • Data then reported to CDC without personal identifiers • CSTE approves annual changes to the list of nationally notifiable infectious diseases • CDC develops a plan for implementing CSTE position statements. • CDC sends letter to state and territorial epidemiologists each year summarizing changes to NNDSS
Some CSTE Activities Related to National Surveillance
• Nationally Notifiable Disease List (via annual Position Statements) • National Disease Case Definitions (via annual Position Statements) • Review of Minimum Data Elements with CDC • National Survey of States (State Reportable Diseases) • Public Health Notifiable Conditions KnowledgeBase • Consultation with CDC on Biosense