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ISDS 2016 Conference Abstracts

NBIC and DTRA, An Interagency Partnership to 
Integrate Analyst Capabilities
Wai-Ling Mui*4, 1, Edward P. Argenta2, 3, Teresa Quitugua4, 1 and Christopher Kiley2, 3
1National Biosurveillance Integration Center, Washington, DC, USA; 2Department of Defense, Ft. Belvoir, VA, USA; 3Defense Threat 
Reduction Agency, Ft. Belvoir, VA, USA; 4Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, USA

Objective
The National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) and 

the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Chemical and Biological 
Technologies Department (DTRA J9 CB) have partnered to co-
develop the Biosurveillance Ecosystem (BSVE), an emerging 
capability that aims to provide a virtual, customizable analyst 
workbench that integrates health and non-health data. This partnership 
promotes engagement between diverse health surveillance entities to 
increase awareness and improve decision-making capabilities.

Introduction
NBIC collects, analyzes, and shares key biosurveillance 

information to support the nation’s response to biological events of 
concern. Integration of this information enables early warning and 
shared situational awareness to inform critical decision making, and 
direct response and recovery efforts.

DTRA J9 CB leads DoD S&T to anticipate, defend, and safeguard 
against chemical and biological threats for the warfighter and the 
nation.

These agencies have partnered to meet the evolving needs of the 
biosurveillance community and address gaps in technology and data 
sharing capabilities. High-profile events such as the 2009 H1N1 
pandemic, the West African Ebola outbreak, and the recent emergence 
of Zika virus disease have underscored the need for integration of 
disparate biosurveillance systems to provide a more functional 
infrastructure. This allows analysts and others in the community 
to collect, analyze, and share relevant data across organizations 
securely and efficiently. Leveraging existing biosurveillance efforts 
provides the federal public health community, and its partners, with 
a comprehensive interagency platform that enables engagement and 
data sharing.

Methods
NBIC and DTRA are leveraging existing biosurveillance projects 

to share data feeds, work processes, resources, and lessons learned. 
A multi-stakeholder Agile process was implemented to represent 
the interests of NBIC, DTRA, and their respective partners. System 
requirements generated by both agencies were combined to form a 
single backlog of prioritized needs. Functional requirements from 
NBIC support the development of the prototype by refining system 
capabilities and providing an operational perspective. DTRA’s 
technical expertise and research and development (R&D) portfolio 
ensures robust analytic applications are embedded within a secure, 
scalable system architecture.

Integration of analyst validated data from the NBIC Biofeeds 
system serves as a gold-standard to improve analytic development 
in machine learning and natural language processing. Additionally, 
working groups are formed using NBIC and DTRA extended 
partnerships with academia and private industry to expand R&D 
possibilities. These expansions include leveraging existing ontology 
efforts for improved system functionality and integrating social media 
algorithms for improved topic analysis output.

Results
The combined efforts of these two agencies to develop the 

BSVE and improve overall biosurveillance processes across the 
federal government has enhanced understanding of the needs of  
the community in a variety of mission spaces. To date, co-creation of 
products, joint analysis, and sharing of data feeds has become a major 
priority for both partners to advance biosurveillance outcomes. Within 
the larger efforts of system development, possible coordination with 
other agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and 
the US Geological Survey (USGS) could expand reach of the system 
to ensure fulfillment of health surveillance requirements as a whole.

Conclusions
The NBIC and DTRA partnership has demonstrated value in 

improving biosurveillance capabilities for each agency and their 
partners. BSVE will provide NBIC analysts with a collaborative 
tool that can leverage use of applications that visualize near real-
time global epidemic and outbreak data from a range of unique and 
trusted sources. The continued collaboration means ongoing access 
to new data streams and analytic processes for all analysts, as well 
as advanced machine learning algorithms that increase capabilities 
for joint analysis, rapid product creation, and continuous interagency 
communication.

Keywords
Biosurveillance; DTRA; NBIC; BSVE; Analytics

*Wai-Ling Mui
E-mail: wai-ling.mui@associates.hq.dhs.gov

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 9(1):e46, 2017