National Biosurveillance Integration Center: Operations and Development Steve Bennett, Ph.D. Director National Biosurveillance Integration Center Office of Health Affairs Department of Homeland Security
National Biosurveillance Integration Center: Operations and Development
Steve Bennett, Ph.D.
Director
National Biosurveillance Integration Center
Office of Health Affairs
Department of Homeland Security
NBIC Strategic Vision and Mission
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Strategic Vision
Advance the safety, security, and resilience of the nation by leading an
integrated biosurveillance effort that facilitates early warning and shared
situational awareness of biological events.
Mission
Enable early warning and shared situational awareness of acute biological
events and support better decisions through rapid identification,
characterization, localization, and tracking.
National Biosurveillance Integration Center
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National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC)
• Chartered by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of
2007 (Public Law 110-53)
• Housed in the Department of Homeland Security
• Coordinates comprehensive national biosurveillance and situational awareness
• Collaborates with the interagency community to acquire, integrate, analyze,
and disseminate information pertaining to emerging biological events and their
impact on US interests in order to:
– Provide indications and warnings to NBIS partners
– Provide situational awareness to NBIS partners
NBIC Mission
• “[The mission is] to disseminate alerts and other information to Member Agencies
and, in coordination with (and where possible through) Member Agencies, to
agencies of State, local, and tribal governments, as appropriate, to enhance the
ability of such agencies to respond to a biological event of national concern” –
P.L. 110-53
National Biosurveillance Integration System
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National Biosurveillance Integration System
(NBIS)
• Interagency community providing national
biosurveillance and situational awareness
• Provides the collective framework to acquire,
integrate, analyze, and disseminate information
pertaining to emerging biological events and their
impact on US interests
NBIS Mission National Biosurveillance Integration System (NBIS) enhances the identification,
location and tracking of biological events potentially impacting homeland security
by uniquely integrating information and data and leveraging interagency
communications and relationships. NBIS supports prevention and mitigation of
such events by providing timely notifications and ongoing situational awareness to
enhance response of government agencies.
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NBIC Strategic Goals and Objectives
NBIC Strategic Plan is
aligned with the National
Strategy for Biosurveillance
concepts and approaches
The Role of NBIC as an Integrator
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NBIC (in full collaboration with its
partners) connects, correlates, and
contextualizes (not just aggregates)
information through the production and
dissemination of its analytic products by:
Creating a synthesized, unified view of
information from different sources, and
providing a conclusion of what it could
mean.
• This information integration has a
greater impact than information
aggregation alone, which is just the
collecting of information to give users
a single place of access.
Providing a broad perspective of the
impact of the combined whole of
aggregated information.
NBIC Reporting
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Monitoring Lists – reaches over 900 users across federal,
state, and local agencies.
Biosurveillance reports – shared via Homeland Security
Information Network (HSIN) and DHS Common Operating
Picture (COP)
• Reports reach thousands of users in 56 states and
territories
• Designates NBIC as biosurveillance authority within COP
community and DHS
FOUO
NBIS weekly biosurveillance calls
– facilitate interagency discussion on
significant worldwide biosurveillance
issues
Specialized, expedited reports –
provide early situational awareness to
senior leadership for decision-support
Protocol Activation – brings federal
partners together on short-notice
teleconference to provide information
sharing on significant biological event
NBIC Products: MERS-CoV and H7N9
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Interagency Coordination
At request of NSS, activated NBIS Protocol on 5 April 2013 to rapidly
bring together NBIS partners to discuss emerging H7N9 situation in
China.
Established weekly interagency calls MERS-CoV and H7N9, with
significant collaborative efforts from CDC and USDA, as well as
participation from the interagency
Coordinated distribution of reports (H7N9 and MERS-CoV), to the
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and the
National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
with the CDC Influenza Coordination Unit and the CDC National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
Coordination Opportunities for Future H7N9 and MERS-CoV Issues
Established operating protocols through relationships with United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) and National Security Staff (NSS)
Newly appointed full-time, virtual liaison from the Department of
Interior National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC)
Surveillance of Department of Veterans Affairs data through part-time
VA liaison
NBIC Products: External Requests
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Super Bowl Health Security Report
• Per the request of NJ Department of
Health and state fusion center, NBIC
provided a comprehensive
assessment on national and
international disease events with
potential impact on Super Bowl
participants
Little League World Series Report
• Per the request of PA Dept. of Health
and state fusion center, NBIC
provided up-to-date information on
disease acuity that may pose risk to
the PA community
NBIC Products: External Requests
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Prioritization of animal diseases with
USDA partner
• Per the request of USDA APHIS VS,
NBIC is partnering to develop a
prioritized list of significant zoonoses in
order to create a “one health” model for
a new surveillance system
Biennial International Amateur Athletic
Federation (IAAF) Report
• The Director of Emergency Operations,
Public Health Division for the Oregon
Health Authority requested NBIC
provide a product similar to the Super
Bowl report for their upcoming
international competition held in July
NBIC Successful Engagements with State and Local Stakeholders
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National Association of County and City Health Officials
Working with NACCHO Biosurveillance Working Group in an effort to strengthen NBIC connection
to state and local public health and biosurveillance communities
NBIC spoke at NACCHO Annual Conference in an effort to provide information that may guide the
strategic direction of the NACCHO Biosurveillance Working Group
NACCHO has provided feedback on NBIC products and pilot projects
HSIN COI and DHS COP
NBIC Biosurveillance Event Reports reach thousands of users in 56 states and territories through
HSIN and the DHS COP
An additional 200 members of the HSIE community, including state fusion centers and public
health personnel, receive BERs
Special Requests
NBIC has received requests from state and local customers for health security reports on:
• Super Bowl in New Jersey requested by NJ Department of Health and state fusion center
• Little League World Series in Pennsylvania requested by PA DOH and state fusion center
• International Amateur Athletic Federation Competition in Oregon requested by Oregon Health
Authority
Infe
cte
d
Time
911 EMS
Poison Control Social Media ED
Hospital/Lab
Open-source news/media
Biosurveillance Value of Early/Pre-Hospital Data
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Event mitigation due to action facilitated by early warning
Collaborative Platform
Development
Collaborative Analytic Workbench for Biosurveillance (CTTSO/Palantir)
National Collaborative for Bio-Preparedness (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Open Source Data Collection
& Analysis
Evaluating New Data
Sources and Analytics
Health Data RFI
Social Media Data (Dahlgren, MITRE)
Food Safety / Poison Control Center Data (CDC/AAPCC)
DHS Absenteeism Data
Framing Problems & Addressing
Gaps
Internal Product &
Process Improvement
New Analytic Collaborations (CBP, VA)
Geospatial Analytics
Internal Evaluation & Prioritization
Evaluating Utility of DHS Component Data Systems for
Biosurveillance (BKC)
Evaluating Value-of-Information for Biosurveillance
(CREATE)
Characterizing & Communicating Uncertainty in Biosurveillance (MITRE)
Integrating Economic Analysis into Biosurveillance (CREATE)
Arkham OSINT (NCMI)
HealthMap GeoRSS Feed
Visual & Text Analytics (PNNL)
NBIC Innovation Portfolio
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Open Source Projects in 2014
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Collaborative Analytic Workbench
(CTTSO-Palantir)
Biosurveillance Real-Time Data Feed (HealthMap)
NCMI Open Source (Asylum)
RSS Aggregator (Feedly)
Social Media Innovation Project
(Dahlgren)
FY15
Public Internet
Visual & Text Analytics (PNNL)
Open
Source Data
Collection &
Analytics
Evaluation of DHS Component Data Systems
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Efforts prompted by February 2012 OCIO Report
Report identified 11 data systems; NBIC identified 9 more
BKC contracted to assess data sets for biosurveillance utility
• #1: Develop a systematic approach and set of criteria for determining
the usefulness of non-public health data sets for NBIC’s biosurveillance
missions;
• #2: Evaluate usefulness of data sets and develop prioritized ranking;
• #3: Demonstrate use of prioritized data sets to support NBIC’s products,
tools, and services
Preliminary BKC approach outlined & under NBIC review
• Identify biosurveillance questions informed by data sets describing the
movement of people and goods, personnel status, detainee health,
infrastructure and resource availability
• Define data evaluation metrics: resolution, update frequency,
comprehensiveness, and uniqueness
• Score each data set for use vs potential health event
– Uses: forecast, detect, characterize, support response, analyze impact
– Events: C,B,R,N,E, man-made or natural disaster, agricultural disease
• Rank data sets with additive multi-attribute function
• Deliver modular, scalable framework with adjustable priority weighting
CBP TECS
ICE US-
VISIT
USSS
USCG
UCIS
DHS IG
TSA
I &A
Internal
Evaluation &
Prioritization
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Contact Information
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Website:
• http://www.dhs.gov/national-biosurveillance-integration-center
Email: