SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

THE FIELDS INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES 20th ANNIVERSARY YEAR
April 29-30, 2013 Workshop on Establishing the scientific foundation for Quantitative Public Health Decision-Making: Linking surveillance, disease modeling, and simulation at the Fields Institute Organizing Committee: Jianhong Wu (contact), Mprime Centre for Disease Modeling at York University David Buckeridge,Surveillance Lab at McGill University Charmaine Dean, University of Western Ontario

This workshop is part of the MPE2013 pan-­-Canadian program on "Models and methods in epidemiology, ecology and public health."

Goal

The goal of the workshop is to establish a high-level framework for real-time statistical and mathematical analysis of surveillance data to support public health decision-making.

Motivation

The breadth of data available for public health surveillance data is increasing rapidly, and data from many sources can now be transmitted to public health with little or no delay following their initial entry. This situation presents a remarkable opportunity to improve decision-making in public health practice, but changes must occur in public health to adapt to this new ‘big data’ reality. In addition to enhancing the skills of the public health workforce and modernizing the public health informatics infrastructure, new strategies are needed to analyze the increasing volume of surveillance data and to derive actionable information.
The last decade has seen an evolution of sophisticated methods for the statistical and mathematical analysis of surveillance data, but these methods have been applied mainly in research and policy settings. There is a need to apply these methods in public health practice contexts where surveillance data must be analyzed quickly to guide actions. Once a framework is defined for applying these methods in practice, analytical software can help to translate the methods into practice settings. Such software could interact with surveillance databases and support routine as well as ad hoc analyses to integrate data, produce alerts, and guide decisions. To guide the development of such software, analytical frameworks must be identified, ideally frameworks that are common across multiple public health issues. This workshop will take an initial step towards defining such a framework.

Format

This 2-day workshop will begin with presentations around decision-making, statistical and mathematical analysis, and visualization in surveillance. Then we will introduce two case studies, one in environmental health and one in infectious diseases. Each case study illustrates a current problem in public health practice where statistical and mathematical models are being used to integrate and analyze large amounts of surveillance data. Participants will work in small groups to develop an analytical framework for their problem. The framework will identify the decisions, values and stakeholders, as well as the data and the analytical methods. The workshop will close with a discussion of the common aspects of the two frameworks developed. Following the workshop, a writing group will describe the results of the case studies and propose a common framework.

Agenda

April 29th
0900 to 0930	Breakfast
0930 to 0940	Plan for the workshop (David Buckeridge, McGill)
0940 to 1000	Decision making (Beate Sander, PHO)
1000 to 1020	Systems to support decisions (Andre Kushniruk, UVic)
1020 to 1040	Break
1040 to 1100	Visualization of surveillance data (Matt Samore, U of Utah)
1100 to 1120	Visualization of laboratory data (Fran Jameison, PHO)
1120 to 1140	Statistical modeling, spatial data (Trisalyn Nelson, UVic)
1140 to 1200	Statistical modeling, surveillance data (Hedy Jiang, U of Toronto)
1200 to 1330	Lunch
1330 to 1350	Agent-based modeling (Seyed Moghadas, York)
1350 to 1410	Mathematical modeling (Amy Greer, PHAC)
1410 to 1500	Open presentations
1500 to 1520	Break
1520 to 1530	Introduction to case studies (David Buckeridge, McGill)
1530 to 1600	The infectious disease scenario (Cecile Tremblay, INSPQ)
1600 to 1630	The environmental health scenario (Sarah Henderson, BCCDC)
1630 to 1700	Introduction to small groups
April 30th
0900 to 0930	Breakfast
0930 to 1000	Small Group Session 1 [Actions, preferences, effectiveness]
1000 to 1100	Small Group Session 2 [Simulation exercise - develop process]
1100 to 1120	Break
1120 to 1200	Small Group Session 3 [Critique]
1200 to 1330	Lunch
1330 to 1400	Presentation of ID Framework + critique
1400 to 1430	Presentation of EH Framework + critique
1430 to 1500	Discussion towards a common Framework
1500 to 1530	Closing and next steps

Confirmed Participants (as of April 24, 2013)

Full Name	University/Affiliation
Albert-Green, Alisha	University of Western Ontario
Andrews, Rob	(no affiliation)
Artaman, Ali	Eastern Ontario Health Unit
Brown, Kevin	University of Toronto
Buckeridge, David	University of Toronto
Cao, Yurong	York University
Chan, Ellen	Public Health Ontario
Chen, Longbin	York University
Dean, Charmaine	Western University
Demarsh, Alex	McGill
Do, Minh T.	Public Health Agency of Canada
Duvvuri, Venkata	York University
Earn, David	McMaster University
Greer, Amy	Public Health Agency of Canada
Henderson, Sarah	British Columbia Center for Disease Control
Hu, Weimin	Public Health Agency of Canada
Hughes, Josie	University of Toronto
Hyder, Ayaz	Yale University
Jamieson, Frances	Public Health Ontario
Jiang, Hedy	University of Toronto
Kushniruk, Andre	University of Victoria
Lavigne, Eric	Public Health Agency of Canada
Leonard, Erin	Centre for Food-borne, Environmental and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Li, Lihua	Western University
Lundy, Erin	Western University
Moghadas, Seyed	York University
Nelson, Trisalyn	University of Victoria
Pang, Peter	National University of Singapore
Rababah, Abedallah	Jordan University of Science and Technology
Rajbhandary, Sameer	Office of Public Health Practice
Samore, Matthew	University of Utah
Sander, Beate	Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion
Tremblay, Cécile	Laboratoire de santé publique du Québec
Tuite, Ashleigh	University of Toronto
Ventresca, Mario	University of Toronto
Vrbova, Linda	Public Health Agency of Canada
Walton, Ryan	Public Health Ontario
Winter, Anne	Public Health Ontario
Wu, Jianhong	Centre for Disease Modelling
Xiao, Yanyu	York University
Yang, Yong	York University
Zinszer, Kate	McGill University