Workshop Scope
The first U.S.-China Infectious Disease Informatics and BioSurveillance Workshop (IDB 2008) will be held on March 28-29, 2008, in Beijing. IDB 2008 is aimed to add the important international aspect to the lively ongoing dialogues among IT/digital government researchers, and public health researchers and practitioners. It will complement the US-based NSF BioSurveillance workshop series by providing a unique forum for U.S. and Chinese researchers and practitioners to discuss country-specific challenges and issues, learn from each other’s practice, gain a trans-national understanding of biosurveillance research and practice, and discuss opportunities and challenges concerning the development of global disease surveillance systems to fight pandemics. It will also serve as a catalyst to promote long-term collaboration among U.S. and Chinese researchers and practitioners in specific areas of common interest.
IDB 2008 is planned as a 1.5-day event. About 14 U.S. and a dozen Chinese researchers, public health practitioners, and funding agency representatives will present their work in this workshop, planned to be a highly interactive, intense, and productive meeting. A sister workshop on "Designing cyberinfrastructure to enable U.S.-China collaboration in tobacco research" (organized by Professor Noshir Contractor from Northwestern University and Professor Xiao Ma from West China School of Public Health at Sichuan University) will be co-located with IDB 2008 on the same dates. Joint sessions will be held between both workshops to share lessons learned on IT across public health applications.
The specific objectives of IDB 2008 are three-fold:
- Create an intellectual forum to bring together key infectious disease informatics and biosurveillance researchers in both U.S. and China to exchange research ideas, and discuss emerging and future research,
- Foster collaboration and promote understanding between U.S. and Chinese public health informatics researchers, and public health agencies and practitioners,
- Discuss lessons learned and unique opportunities concerning surveillance for large events (e.g., Beijing 2008 Olympics) and the development of global disease surveillance networks.
This workshop is BY INVITATION ONLY. Workshop participants will help define infectious disease informatics and biosurveillance research topics and potential exploratory projects.
IDB 2008 is jointly hosted by the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing CDC, the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Arizona.