CDC Symposium to Focus on
Combining Data
Henry Rolka, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Office of Critical Information Integration and Exchange
T
he surrounding theme of the public health threat surveillance, moni-
12th biennial Symposium on toring, and assessment; public health pre-
Statistical Methods, to take place paredness; emergency or disaster response;
April 7–8, 2009, is fusion, or combin- spatial-temporal analysis of multiple infor-
ing of data and/or information from mation sources; applications of health risk
multiple sources to support conclusions, analysis, risk modeling, and decision sci-
predictions, decisions, and actions. ence; model assessment in large linked or
“
Maintaining sufficient
information and using
Two half-day short courses will be networked databases; and cutting-edge
offered on April 6 in conjunction with analytics applied to public health data. it for intelligent
the symposium. Ronald Fricker Jr. of the This venue provides statisticians, social
Naval Postgraduate School will teach a and behavioral scientists, epidemiologists,
decisions transcends
course on methodological issues in bio- economists, policy analysts, and other
scientific disciplines
surveillance from 8:30 a.m. to noon. health researchers a unique opportunity
This short course will focus on the to gain knowledge and stimulate further
”
.
strengths and limitations of statistical methods development in the fusion and
detection algorithms, with emphasis on use of multisource data to protect and
the issues related to developing, evaluat- promote public health.
ing, and implementing such algorithms The Centers for Disease Control action with only partial information.
in biosurveillance applications. and Prevention Statistical Advisory Evidence-based public health knowl-
From 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wendy Group, the Agency for Toxic Substances edge is derived from many information
Martinez of the U.S. Department of and Disease Registry, and the ASA are sources, including data where inductive
Defense will teach a course on infor- sponsoring the symposium to promote reasoning is used to make conclusions.
mation visualization. Martinez is the development and application of sta- A conclusion drawn from inductive rea-
coauthor of several books on statistical tistical methods to address concerns in soning or the process of inference as a
data analysis, including Computational public health. The success of the public rule involves uncertainty. The charac-
Statistics Handbook with MATLAB, 2nd health mission, including emergency terization of uncertainty using probabil-
edition, and Exploratory Data Analysis preparedness and response, depends ity concepts and statistical reasoning is
with MATLAB. highly on a sound information supply a common thread for decision support
The symposium will offer invited and chain to adequately inform decisions. from integrated data. This symposium
oral presentations and poster sessions. Maintaining sufficient informa- is designed to draw from statistical and
Session topics include the application of tion and using it for intelligent deci- related information sciences across vari-
analytic techniques to multiple data sourc- sions transcends scientific disciplines. ous areas of application, discipline, and
es; best practices in information fusion Alone, sound information products information technology concepts that
and biosurveillance; statistical issues in support, but do not ensure, correct relate to integrating data and informa-
bioterrorism and environmental tracking; decisions, and we generally have to take tion for use in public health. ■
FEBRUARY 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 35
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