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ISDS 2016 Conference Abstracts

A practitioner-driven research agenda for syndromic 
surveillance
Richard Hopkins2, Julia Gunn3, John Berezowski4 and Howard Burkom*1
1Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA; 2University of Florida, Tallahassee, FL, USA; 3Department of 
Communicable Disease Control, Boston Public Health Commission, Boston, MA, USA; 4Veterinary Public Health Institute, University 
of Bern, Switzerland, Bern, Switzerland

Objective
To obtain feedback and seek future directions for an ISDS initiative 

to establish and update research questions in Informatics, Analytics, 
Communications, and Systems Research with the greatest perceived 
impact for improving surveillance practice.

Introduction
Over the past fifteen years, syndromic surveillance (SyS) has 

evolved from a set of ad hoc methods used mostly in post-disaster 
settings, then expanded with broad support and development because 
of bioterrorism concerns, and subsequently evolved to a mature 
technology that runs continuously to detect and monitor a wide 
range of health issues. Continued enhancements needed to meet 
the challenges of novel health threats with increasingly complex 
information sources will require technical advances focused on  
day-to-day public health needs.

Since its formation in 2005, the International Society for Disease 
Surveillance (ISDS) has sought to clarify and coordinate global 
priorities in surveillance research. As part of a practitioner-driven 
initiative to identify current research priorities in SyS, ISDS polled 
its members about capabilities needed by SyS practitioners that could 
be improved as a result of research efforts. A taskforce of the ISDS 
Research Committee, consisting of national and global subject matter 
experts (SMEs) in SyS and ISDS professional staff, carried out the 
project. This panel will discuss the results and the preferred means to 
determine and communicate priorities in the future.

Identified Practice-Oriented Priority Areas for Surveillance Research

Keywords
surveillance research; priorities; public health practice

*Howard Burkom
E-mail: howard.burkom@jhuapl.edu

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 9(1):e164, 2017