Subcommittee Co-Chairs: James Arnaez (WA) and Michael Friedrichs (UT)

The Chronic Disease Subcommittee aims to support Chronic Disease epidemiologists by providing targeted trainings and resources. The Chronic Disease Epidemiology Subcommittee focuses on efforts to build capacity for chronic disease epidemiology. Members of the subcommittee include Chronic Disease Epidemiologists and professionals in state, local, tribal and territorial levels as well as private-sector and academic settings.

Resources:

• Building State-Based Chronic Disease Epidemiology Capacity Plan. In June 2016, the subcommittee released a Chronic Disease Epidemiology Capacity Building plan to prioritize the chronic disease-specific recommendations from the 2013 National Assessment of Epidemiology Capacity. The results of this Chronic Disease capacity building plan provided suggestions for potential activities for implementing priority recommendations with the goal of increasing chronic disease epidemiology capacity at state and local health departments.

• Chronic Disease Epidemiology Orientation Manual: A Resource for Applied Epidemiologists. The subcommittee developed an orientation manual for chronic disease epidemiologists, that provides guidance on the skills and knowledge with which chronic disease epidemiologists should be familiar. This manual encourages more uniform knowledge among chronic disease epidemiologists. The manual includes a guide for understanding the roles of a chronic disease epidemiologists; collaborating and integration with other programs; technical challenges faced by chronic disease epidemiologists including the identification of data sources and indicators; and data interpretation and dissemination.

• 2013 National Assessment of Epidemiology Capacity: Findings and Recommendations for Chronic Disease, Maternal and Child Health, and Oral Health. The subcommittee developed a chronic disease module that was included in the 2013 Epidemiology Capacity Assessment to gather more specific data about the chronic disease epidemiology workforce.

• In 1998, CSTE passed a position statement, 98-CD-04, to include cancer screening indicators in the National Public Health Surveillance System. Since then, cancer screening indicators have included in the collection of chronic disease indicators, and standardized cancer reporting definitions were emphasized in 2009 with position statement 09-CD-01.

• CSTE, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD), and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) developed the first set of Chronic Disease Indicators (CDIs) in This cross-cutting set of 73 indicators were designed to allow states, territories, and other jurisdictions to uniformly define, collect, and report data that are important to public health practice.

• A 2002 CSTE position statement, 02-CD-02, revised the CDIs to reflect expert and stakeholder recommendations.

For more information about the Chronic Disease Subcommittee, please contact Preksha Malhotra. Click here to view other Chronic Disease, Maternal and Child Health, and Oral Health Steering Committee activities.