Issue 20 - New Syndromic Surveillance Resources on the Web

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New Syndromic Surveillance Resources on the Web
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There are two new web resources for those interested in syndromic surveillance.

The Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics, which is part of the Epidemiology Program Office of the CDC, has created a WebBoard specifically for Syndromic Surveillance. Go to:

http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/syndromic.htm

and click on the green ‘WebBoards’ button. Then click ‘Syndromic Surveillance | New User.’ Enter the required information, including a valid email address. You do not need to enter your real name, but you do need to click ‘Create’ at the bottom to create a login ID.

The WebBoard will email you a temporary password, which is good for 24 hours. Next, log onto the WebBoard using your login ID and assigned password. You may want to change your password to something memorable by choosing 'More | My Profile.’

Currently, the WebBoard is organized around the topics presented at the 2003 National Nosocomial Syndromic Surveillance Conference. Groups of questions related to each topic are called “conferences.” There are also conferences called “Vendors Corner”, “Reference”, and “Conferences and Workshops”. You simply click on the small (+) on the left of the conference description to access specific postings. Then click on the question or answer desired.

Click on the ‘WebBoard Manual | User Quick Reference Guide’ for an overview of other WebBoard functions. These include how to post a message, attaching files to your message, replying to a message, and participating through email. The email participation feature is especially nice; you will receive messages posted to the WebBoard and can reply to them without logging onto the WebBoard. The WebBoard also supports live “Chat.” However, the participating syndromic surveillance community will need to grow for this to be a useful feature.

This WebBoard is in its infancy, and based on the comments from some contributors, has had some technical problems. This writer found the WebBoard slow to respond (using a DSL line), which means that those using dial up connections may find the WebBoard too slow for practical use. Nevertheless, the WebBoard has tremendous potential to disseminate information about syndromic surveillance. Since a public forum such as this is only as good as its participants, it is hoped that everyone interested in syndromic surveillance will contribute to the WebBoard and help it become a useful resource.

Another recently available resource is the conference proceedings from the 2003 National Syndromic Surveillance Conference, held October 23-24th in New York City. They can be located at a new website…

http://www.syndromic.org/con2.html

This site’s stated purpose is to “foster the connections and information exchange initiated at the 2002 and 2003 National Syndromic Surveillance Conferences”. In addition to providing the conference proceedings (2002 and 2003), it provides links to CDC sites such as WebBoard and Bibliography, as well as news publications, current journal articles and recently published books. It also provides links to national syndromic surveillance systems and vendor sites.

RedBat Alert tries to foster the growth of accurate and scientific communication about syndromic surveillance. Please email us at redbatsoftware@yahoo.com if you know of other useful resources.

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