Community of Practice Updates

Community Highlights

Subcommittee and user group leads summarized their recent activities:

• Data Quality Subcommitttee; Co-chairs: Jade Hodge (KS), Andrew Farrey (KY), and Krystal Collier (CDC)
  The team held its 2023 introductory meeting to plan the year’s agenda. Discussion topics will include AMC updates and Washington State’s workflows for sending data quality reports to facilities.

• Syndrome Definition Subcommittee; Co-chairs: Rasneet Kumar (Tarrant Co., TX), Rosa Ergas (MA), Zach Stein (CDC), and Sara Chronister (WA)
  Sara, the team’s newest member, is spearheading a formal process for proposing, developing, and approving syndrome definitions. To take part, please contact Sara (sara.chronister@doh.wa.gov).

• SYS and Public Health Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery (SPHERR) Subcommittee; Co-chairs: Bill Smith (Maricopa Co., AZ) and Fatema Mamou (MI)
  Fatema Mamou reminded everyone that the meeting times have changed. The subcommittee will now meet the fourth Tuesday of the month, 2:00–3:00 PM EST. The January presentation focused on data validation of overdose ED visits. Fatema invited community members to share use case examples of emergency preparedness. She also encouraged members to share data issues, for example their experiences working with data providers, especially if related to emergency preparedness. If you’re interested in sharing use case examples or data issues, please contact Fatema at mamouf@michigan.gov.

• Technical Subcommittee; Chair: Caleb Wiedeman (TN)
  Caleb was pleased to announce that the group has reviewed all ESSENCE enhancement service desk tickets.

• NSSP–ESSSENCE User Group; Aaron Kite-Powell (CDC), Leif Power (JHU APL), and Travis Lim (JHU APL)
  Although a few topics will be prepared in advance, the purpose of this meeting is to answer any questions about ESSENCE. Please submit questions to the Slack channel, #r-user.

• NSSP R User Group; Co-leads: Michael Sheppard (CDC) and Grace Goulet (Tarrant Co., TX)
  Michael recapped the group’s January call, which focused on ICD-10 coding practices, a demo of analytic methods that NSSP uses to identify revised ICD-10 codes for 2023, and integration of R python code that uses the reticulate package. Upcoming topics will include RStudio presentations, new BioSense Platform functionality for RStudio Workbench, and what users can expect with the ongoing transition from RStudio to Posit. Grace encouraged participants to suggest topics on the Slack channel.

• Analytic Tools for Routine Health Surveillance Subcommittee NEW! Co-chairs: Michael Sheppard (CDC), Diksha Ramnani (Monterey Co., CA), Caleb Wiedeman (TN), Kacey Potis (WA), and Howard Burkom (JHU APL)
  The subcommittee was launched to enhance the use of analytic methods for health surveillance. Howard Burkom described several ways the subcommittee plans to achieve this:
  • Elicit from users what changes or new methods are needed;
  • Give users better information about when algorithms are applicable and how to interpret results;
  • Improve algorithms to find anomalies;
  • Enhance the regression algorithms (e.g., replacement of least-squares regression with Poisson regression);
  • Add climate, air quality, and demographics (like the Social Vulnerability Index);
  • Enhance spatiotemporal detection; and
  • Help users integrate new Rnssp methods into their daily routine.

• To join this subcommittee, simply update your profile. A new Slack channel has been created for this subcommittee: #analytic-tools.

If you have questions about the NSSP CoP, its highly collaborative user groups, the NSSP CoP Slack Workspace, or syndromic surveillance, please email syndromic@cste.org.

Reminders and Announcements

• Call for Deputy Chair: Anna Frick has recently moved into the core committee chair position, which requires an ad hoc nomination and election for the deputy chair. Additional information on how to nominate a NSSP CoP member will be sent out soon.
• CoP Introduces New Subcommittee: Interest in new analytic methods spurred the CoP to add a new subcommittee. The newly formed Analytic Tools for Routine Health Surveillance Subcommittee will focus on analytic methods being used for health surveillance. For details and co-chairs, see Community Highlights.
• Join the Community and a subcommittee! Our Community is a great way to meet others working in syndromic surveillance and advance the work of syndromic surveillance at all jurisdictional levels. Become part of the Community or update your NSSP CoP membership to join a subcommittee here. Encourage others to join, too!
  • Join and participate in the Slack workspace. This space is full of rich discussion among colleagues. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with your peers outside of CoP meetings.
  • Submit success stories to be featured in NSSP Update and on the NSSP CoP website. You do great work every day that we want to highlight.
  • Submit a topic for future NSSP CoP monthly calls. These calls are meant for the community, and we want to know what is most important to you.

• CSTE Annual Conference 2023: Meet, build relationships, and network with colleagues and experts in areas including informatics, infectious diseases, substance use, chronic disease, and injury control. Join more than 2,500 public health epidemiologists from across the nation in workshops, plenary sessions, oral breakout sessions, roundtable discussions, and poster presentations. The plan is to hold conference sessions in person; however, CSTE will monitor circumstances and public health recommendations of group gatherings.
  • June 25–29, 2023, in Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Registration is now open! An early bird discount is offered for registrations completed by 11:59 PM ET on Thursday, May 4, 2023. To register and learn more, visit the conference site.