CALL FOR ABSTRACTS — 141st APHA Annual Meeting

Theme: Think Global, Act Local: Best Practices Around the World

Applied Public Health Statistics

Submission Deadline: Thursday, February 7, 2013

• Analyses of and methodology for high dimensional data
  
• Environmental statistics
  
• Gene-environment interactions - methods and applications
  
• General topics
  
• Genomics
  
• HIV and other infectious diseases -- statistical methods and applications
  
• Health disparities & statistics
  
• Spatial statistics in public health
  
• Statistical consulting in public health
  
• Statistical methods and applications in community health
  
• Statistical methods and applications in international settings
  
• Statistics and chronic diseases
  
• Statistics and public policy
  
• Student oral presentations
  
• Student poster presentations
  
• Syndromic Survellance
  
• Teaching statistics in a public health context
  
• Traffic injury research, methodologies and applications
  

Individual Abstract Submissions

Submit individual abstracts according to the on-line instructions. (Non-students need submit only an abstract; enter "N/A" where a summary is requested.) We will judge the abstract on your clarity of presentation, originality, methodology and contribution to the field of statistics. The highest rated abstracts, based on blinded peer review, are generally selected and placed in sessions according to the overall program plan. Oral presentations at contributed sessions are usually fifteen minutes in length. Presenters at poster sessions should display their work and be available to answer questions throughout their scheduled 90-minute session. We will take your preference for oral versus poster presentation into consideration, but the Program Committee considers every abstract for both oral and poster presentation. You should submit material only if you are committed to presenting the paper or poster personally, or will find a substitute who will register, attend the meeting and present your paper or poster.

Student Research Session & Competition

The Applied Public Health Statistics Section is also accepting abstract submissions for a student research poster and oral presentation sessions. Students wishing to be considered for these sessions should submit online an abstract and a 2-page summary of their paper. When submitting your abstract, please submit it under the session "Student oral presentations" or "Student posters", even if it may be thematically related to other topics on the topic list.  Students interested in competing in the student paper competition should contact Trent Lalonde (trent.lalonde@unco.edu). Your two-page summary of the paper should be e-mailed to Trent (trent.lalonde@unco.edu) with copy to Brisa Sanchez brisa@umich.edu, along with a letter from a faculty member attesting to the author's student status.  If a student abstract was submitted for oral presentation but is not accepted as an oral presentation, it will automatically be considered as a poster. All accepted student abstracts will be considered for the Student Research Competition. Awards will be given to the Best Student Poster and Best Student Oral Presentation. 

Special Interest Session Proposals

The Applied Public Health Statistics Section also invites the submission of proposals for special interest sessions pertinent to the theme of the 141th Annual Meeting. You should submit individual abstracts for a Special Interest Session according to the on-line instructions. If you would like to organize such a session, please send a description of your proposal to Brisa Sanchez (brisa@umich.edu) or Din Chen (din_chen@urmc.rochester.edu), if possible, in advance of submitting your abstracts!). Once it is approved, we'll create a session slot for you that will appear in the final sessions list, and ultimately, in the Meeting Program. In your proposal, please include

1. Organizer's full mailing address, e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers;
2. session title;
3. brief (1-2 pages) overview describing the purpose, relevance and importance of the proposed session;
4. topics and participants, including the proposed presiders(s), titles of each presentation, full names of all authors, with full names of presenters underlined (as in the on-line abstract);
5. time schedule within the session (begin the session at 0:00 hrs and end it at 1:30).

A presentation at a Special Interest Session may be up to 30 minutes in length. We suggest that Special Interest Sessions allow time for a discussant. Review of Special Interest Sessions All Special Interest Session proposals and abstracts will be peer reviewed. All abstracts will be evaluated on their individual merits; acceptance of a Special Interest Session does not guarantee that all abstracts submitted for that session will be accepted, or that they can all be scheduled together. Unless instructed otherwise, the Program Committee will automatically consider the individual abstracts from any rejected Special Interest Session for presentation in Contributed Abstract sessions.

Joint Sessions

If you are submitting an abstract that is linked with other abstracts in a joint session, submit the abstract on-line, but also notify Brisa Sanchez (brisa@umich.edu) or Din Chen (din_chen@urmc.rochester.edu) of the group of abstracts to which yours belongs.

Continuing Education Credit: APHA values the ability to provide continuing education credit to physicians, nurses, health educators, and those certified in public health at its annual meeting. Please complete all required information when submitting an abstract so members can claim credit for attending your session. These credits are necessary for members to keep their licenses and credentials. For a session to be eligible for Continuing Education Credit, each presenter, panelist, discussant, and/or faculty must provide:

1. an abstract free of trade and/or commercial product names;
2. at least one MEASURABLE SINGLE objective (“to understand” or “to learn” are not measurable objectives and compound objectives are not acceptable). Use ONLY the following Measurable Action Verbs: Explain, Demonstrate, Analyze, Formulate, Discuss, Compare, Differentiate, Describe, Name, Assess, Evaluate, Identify, Design, Define or List.
3. A signed Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form with a relevant qualification statement; Example of Acceptable Biographical Qualification Statement: (I have been the principal or co-principal of multiple federally funded grants focusing on the epidemiology of drug abuse, HIV prevention and co-occurring mental and drug use disorders. Among my scientific interests has been the development of strategies for preventing HIV and STDs in out-of-treatment drug users.)
4. All continuing education learning content must be of sound science or professional practice and serve to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills and professional competence of the health professional. Learning content should be evidence-based if available.

A list of over 30 areas will be provided online for you to choose from. You will be asked to choose at least one or up to 6 areas that your presentation will address. Thank you for your assistance in making your session credit worthy. Contact Annette Ferebee at annette.ferebee@apha.org if you have any questions concerning continuing education. For program questions, contact the program planner listed below.