Syndromic Surveillance: Improving Public Health Systems Preparedness through Advances in Statistical Modeling

GUEST LECTURER
Harriet Black Nembhard, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Bashore Career Professor, The Pennsylvania St

AFFILIATION
Stewart School of ISyE

ABSTRACT
Syndromic Surveillance has emerged as a new public health surveillance paradigm to identify disease clusters earlier than would conventional reporting of confirmed cases. The approaches used in syndromic surveillance are similar to those in traditional statistical monitoring. We develop the multivariate cuscore (MCS) control chart and the high density (HD) control chart to aid in early detection. Existing relevant approaches in the literature include nonparametric analogues and the multivariate changepoint (MCP). We demonstrate how these statistical methods can be applied on influenza-like illnesses (ILI) data from the US and France. Challenges are presented by the fact that ILI data are non-normal, not independent, and often nonstationary. In addition, we explore how these statistical methods can be refined to take advantage of prior information about health system characteristics such as increases in over-the-counter medication sales and seasonal patterns of outbreaks.

Biosketch of Speaker:
Harriet Black Nembhard is an associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and director of the Laboratory for Quality Engineering and System Transitions (QUEST). Dr. Nembhard’s research mission is to investigate the design and implementation of concepts and methods of quality, productivity, and system improvement for manufacturing organizations during periods of change and transition. She examines ways to combine these methods with economic cost, risk, and capital measurements to advance the understanding of dynamic systems and improve decision making. She is the author or co-author of over 35 research publications and has received nearly $1 million in research funding. She is currently doing work to improve product and process quality in nanomanufacturing, health-care, and environmental systems. Dr. Nembhard is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt and has served as an expert consultant on six sigma, statistical control, and experimental design for several major companies. She serves on the editorial boards of Quality Engineering and Quality and Reliability Engineering International. She is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), and a senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). In 2003, she won the Armand V. Feigenbaum Medal award and the Lloyd S. Nelson award for her professional contributions. In 2006, she was elected to the International Academy for Quality.

DATE & TIME
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 -- 11:00 AM

DURATION
1 hour

LOCATION
ISyE MAIN, Executive Classroom # 228

CONTACT PERSON
Kwok-Leung Tsui

RELATED SITE
http://www2.isye.gatech.edu/statistics/index.php