CDC Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Report on CDC-Hosted Scientific Meeting Spending

In compliance with the 21st Century Cures Act this report includes all CDC-hosted scientific meetings held in FY 2018 where the expenses associated with the scientific meeting exceeded $30,000. The descriptions include:

• The date of the scientific meeting
• The location of the scientific meeting
• A brief explanation of how the scientific meeting advanced the mission of the agency
• A description of exceptional circumstances for scientific meeting where expenses exceeded $150,000
• The total scientific meeting expenses incurred by the agency for the scientific meeting
• The total number of individuals whose travel expenses or other scientific meeting expenses were paid by the agency

Center for Preparedness and Response

Division of State and Local Readiness Career Epidemiology Field Officer (CEFO) Scientific Annual Meeting

Dates: October 23-27, 2017

Venue, City, State, or Country: CDC Global Communications Center, Atlanta, GA

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: Career Epidemiology Field Officers (CEFOs) serve as critical resources for state and local public health departments to build and strengthen capability and capacity to respond more effectively to public health threats. The CEFOs directly support and provide technical and scientific expertise to aid in ensuring that state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments achieve all-hazards preparedness. This event directly supports the Center for Preparedness and Response (CPR) and Division of State and Local Readiness (DSLR) mission and CDC’s priorities to support national preparedness activities. CEFOs charged with providing technical assistance to state, local, and territorial public health programs will present to and learn from each other during this event using their unique perspectives from the frontlines. Additionally, this meeting provides a significant orientation for CEFOs who recently joined the program. This meeting will help orient or refresh the knowledge of all CEFOs to CPR and DSLR programs, their roles in their field assignments, and state-of-the-art lessons they can use to meet public health emergency preparedness and response objectives in their assigned jurisdictions. CPR/DSLR will fully use the opportunities this meeting provides to train CEFOs to advance public health emergency preparedness capabilities and capacities in their assigned jurisdictions. The meeting will help ensure that CEFO activities in the field adhere to CDC standards and requirements, and thereby promote a uniform state and local approach to public health actions consistent with CDC guidance. The direct sharing of critical knowledge gleaned from frontline experiences with DSLR leadership will reduce training costs.

Total Estimated Cost: $71,026

Total Attendees: 94

Total Feds on Travel: 35

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 0

Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services

67th Annual Epidemic Intelligence Service Conference

Dates: April 17-21, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: Hilton Hotel, Atlanta, GA

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: The primary mission for the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services (CSELS) is to provide scientific service, expertise, skills, and tools in support of CDC’s national efforts to promote health; prevent disease, injury and disability; and prepare for emerging health threats. The Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development (DSEPD) has a strategic priority to prepare the public health workforce for 21st Century public health challenges. The Epidemiology Workforce Branch (EWB) is that entity responsible for implementing a major part of that strategic goal by annually training a class of approximately 80 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers who will provide service to CDC and state and local health agencies as part of their two-year training program. The EIS Officer training program consists of a number of Core Activities of Learning (CALS) that officers must complete in the course of their 2 years so that they may successfully graduate from the program. The EIS Conference was a public forum to showcase the research that the officers had done and gave them an opportunity to complete one of the CALS, presenting their work before a large audience of scientific and public health communities.

Description of Exceptional Circumstances: The EIS Conference ties directly to the mission of CDC as an agency and is regarded as a priority event by the CDC Office of the Director. It highlights the elite scientific and epidemiological activities at CDC, and it also serves as a vital continuing education opportunity for the nation’s public health professionals, health scientists, and epidemiologists. This annual event is an important forum for improving health security and fostering collaboration among public health care workers. Additionally, without the conference many of the attendees would not meet their continuing education requirements.

Total Estimated Cost: $1,080,042

Total Attendees: 2,413

Total Feds on Travel: 360

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 88

National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases

Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Annual Meeting

Dates: May 1-2, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: Urban Studio and Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Portland, OR

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: The purpose of the event was to present a summary of vaccine safety issues or research study abstracts. The Immunization Safety Office (ISO) of CDC/ATSDR provides leadership and expertise in immunization safety research and surveillance to help ensure safety of vaccines that play a key role in improving the public’s health. The VSD Annual Meeting is a key meeting that occurs annually among the VSD project investigators and has been taking place for over 20 years. The VSD meeting produces many important decisions and critical guidance as well as direction to current and future studies which address/respond to vaccine safety concerns raised by policy makers and the public.

Description of Exceptional Circumstances: This VSD conference is a key gathering that occurs annually among the VSD project investigators and has been taking place for over 20 years. The conference produces many important decisions and critical guidance, as well as direction to current and future studies which address/respond to vaccine safety concerns raised by policy makers and the public. Many of these discussions do not occur without this type of in-person interaction and dialogue. We attribute many of the successes of the VSD to the annual conference, where important, novel ideas have been advanced by this expert group. Not having an annual conference would jeopardize the CDC/VSD’s critical role as the cornerstone of our nation’s vaccine safety system.

Total Estimated Cost: $201,506

Total Attendees: 75

Total Feds on Travel: 11

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 64

15th International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis and other Tick-Borne Diseases

Dates: September 11-14, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: CDC Global Communications Center, Atlanta, GA

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: This meeting promotes public health through disease prevention and preparedness by the collaboration across disciplines to uncover potential areas of future innovation in Lyme disease and other tick-borne disease control. This future innovation allows CDC to conduct critical science to provide health information to the public.

Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases have become a focal point of research for physicians, epidemiologists, laboratorians, and entomologists in North America and Europe. The emergence and spread of these diseases of public health importance has elevated the need to collaborate across disciplines to uncover potential areas of future innovation. This four-day meeting, co-hosted by CDC and the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA), will bring together colleagues from the U.S. and international communities to present current research and evaluate the impact of this work

Total Estimated Cost: $67,735

Total Attendees: 250

Total Feds on Travel: 25

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 13

National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Annual Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Surveillance Meeting

Dates: August 7-8, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: Westin Buckhead Hotel,  Atlanta, GA

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable fatal disease with limited data concerning the prevalence, incidence and causes of ALS in the U.S. Congress enacted the ALS Registry Act (S. 1382) in 2008 and directed CDC to establish and administer the National ALS Registry.  This meeting was convened to meet the requirements of the ALS Registry Act which directs CDC to establish a committee to review information and make recommendations to the Secretary concerning the development and maintenance of the National ALS Registry; the type of information to be collected and stored in the Registry; the manner in which such data is to be collected and stored in the Registry; the use and availability of such data including guidelines for such use; and the collection of information about diseases and disorders that primarily affect motor neurons that are considered essential to furthering the study and cure of ALS.

Total Estimated Cost: $57,582

Total Attendees: 50

Total Feds on Travel: 8

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 42

National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention

The HIV Outpatient Study Annual Investigators Meeting

Dates: April 27-28, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: Homewood Suites, Chicago, IL

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: This meeting allows study investigators to assess data being used from this study to monitor the progress in achieving the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which include but are not limited to the examination of trends in the epidemiology of chronic HIV disease in this aging population; the identification of association and interactions between HIV disease, antiretroviral therapy, and other comorbidities.

Total Estimated Cost: $36,917

Total Attendees: 34

Total Feds on Travel: 3

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 31

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

National Immunization Conference

Dates: May 15-17, 2018

Venue, City, State, or Country: Hilton Hotel, Atlanta, GA

How the Meeting Advanced the Mission of the Agency: To maintain and improve on current immunization coverage levels, millions of immunizations are given annually. The number of doses distributed in the United States more than doubled in the past 20 years. In order to maintain and improve on the quality of this large and very successful immunization effort, immunization providers and program managers must know, maintain, and continuously increase their competency in:

• The latest vaccine recommendations for children, adolescents, adults, and special populations, as prescribed the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.
• New research, new vaccines, new vaccine supply updates.
• New epidemiological information about disease outbreaks and other disease trends.
• Innovations occurring among numerous, state, local, and private practices that can result in more efficient and cost-saving programs. Programmatic strategies such as reminder/recall systems and standing orders are examples.
• How to handle current issues of concerns, such as vaccine safety concerns which are increasingly being raised by parents.

Description of Exceptional Circumstances: This educational activity is one of many facets of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases ongoing efforts to educate and support providers as they try to keep up with current best practices related to immunization. Immunization is one of the great success stories in public health, listed as one of the century’s greatest public health achievements. The National Immunization Conference (NIC) mission is to offer information that will help participants provide comprehensive immunization services for all age groups. The conference also offers participants an opportunity to learn innovative strategies for developing programs and policies, and advancing science to promote immunization among all ages today for a healthy tomorrow. The NIC is a biennial event held in Atlanta to reduce overall conference costs to federal employees and agencies. Expenditures related to this event are the most cost effective way of disseminating immunization related policies, strategies, and planning issues related to vaccine preventable diseases.

Total Estimated Cost: $260,190

Total Attendees: 377

Total Feds on Travel: 319

Total Non-Feds on Travel: 58