142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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CDC FoodCORE - Wisconsin Center's student Surveillance and Outbreak Support Team bolsters infectious disease outbreak investigations

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Sunday, November 16, 2014

Justin Kohl, MPH , Divison of Public Health - Bureau of Communicable Diseases and Emergency Response, Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Madison, WI
As more infectious diseases emerge and microbiological techniques evolve, the need to understand the public health impact of these diseases requires a greater investment in workforce development to support epidemiologic investigations.  During October 2009 the Wisconsin Division of Public Health received a pilot grant from CDC to develop new methods and build on existing best practices to detect, investigate, respond to and control outbreaks of foodborne diseases; focusing primarily on outbreaks caused by Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria.  Some of the funding was used to establish the Wisconsin Surveillance and Outbreak Support (SOS) Team, to help state and local investigators interview patients, enter and maintain data in an electronic disease surveillance system, and investigate outbreaks. During 2010, CDC expanded the project to four additional sites for a total of 7 centers, and in 2011, the project was renamed FoodCORE (Foodborne Disease Centers of Outbreak Response Enhancement).

SOS Team students work part-time during afternoons and evenings to aid enteric disease epidemiologists with surveillance and outbreak activities and to support local health departments in reaching and interviewing patients diagnosed with enteric illnesses. The SOS Team is comprised of graduate students engaged in various studies related to infectious diseases and public health. In addition to providing direct support for disease surveillance and control activities in Wisconsin it serves as a training ground for those who are interested in epidemiology, infectious disease surveillance, and outbreak investigations. The SOS Team is led by two epidemiologists at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. This model could be adapted in other states to support workforce development, build on relationships between public health and academia, and to improve local and state public health collaboration.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Public health or related education

Learning Objectives:
Describe how the use of a centralized student interviewing team in a home rule state (Wisconsin) enhanced infectious disease surveillance and outbreak investigations. Identify strategies in my own state/jurisdiction that could build on the best practices identified in the presentation/poster to benefit surveillance and outbreak investigations while preparing future public health professionals with real world epidemiology experience.

Keyword(s): College Students, Workforce Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an infectious disease epidemiologist and the coordinator for the Surveillance and Outbreak Support Team at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health. I worked as a student intern, then student interviewer on the SOS Team and have led the team as the epidemiologist and coordinator for the past 3 years.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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