BioSense Program Redesign

The BioSense Program provides local, state, and federal partners a timely regional and national picture of trends in disease syndromes and situation awareness. BioSense is in the midst of a redesign that shifts the program's focus to meet the needs of stakeholders and end users in state and local health departments, CDC programs, hospitals, and other federal programs (i.e. DoD and VA) to improve regional and national coverage.

https://sites.google.com/site/biosenseredesign/about

At a recent Forum hosted by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), state and local health practitioners expressed their desire to more easily access social media data. The Now Trending Challenge was created to help fill this need.

The Now Trending Challenge asks participants to create a web-based application using open-source Twitter data that will automatically deliver a list of the top-five trending illnesses from a specified geographic region in a twenty-four hour period. This data would be sent to state and local health practitioners to use in a variety of ways including building a baseline of trend data, engaging the public on trending health topics, serving as an indicator of potential health issues emerging in the population, or cross-referencing other data sources.

The winning submission will receive a grand prize of $21,000, as well as a $1000 travel stipend to attend an event announcing the winner. In addition to the monetary prize, winners will have the chance to present their tool at a Fusion Forum and will ultimately benefit from national visibility and recognition as the tool is used by state and local health practitioners throughout the nation.

For further information, including complete rules and regulations, and to register your intent to participate, please visit www.nowtrendingchallenge.com.

https://sites.google.com/site/biosenseredesign/community-forum