Chronic Disease/Maternal and Child Health: Chronic Disease
Subcommittee Co-Chairs: Khristina Morgan (VA) and Annalyse Bergman (AL)
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The Chronic Disease Subcommittee is dedicated to fostering collaboration among chronic disease epidemiologists and public health professionals across the state, local, Tribal, territorial, private, and academic sectors. The Chronic Disease Subcommittee
aims to strengthen collective efforts and build capacity for chronic disease epidemiology by sharing information, discussing best practices, and working through ongoing challenges in the field.
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The goals of the subcommittee are to:
- Promote collaboration among peers
- Strengthen efforts in Chronic Disease applied epidemiology
- Build capacity in Chronic Disease epidemiology work across the nation
Current Priorities:
Chronic Disease Surveillance Modernization:
The Chronic Disease Surveillance Modernization Partners’ Network is a multidisciplinary group of State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial (STLT) chronic disease epidemiologists, informaticians, national public health associations, and academic partners tasked
with developing a national strategic plan and roadmap to guide chronic disease modernization activities. The group continues to contribute professional expertise to engage with chronic disease modernization activities and review implementation opportunities
aligned with the strategic plan. For more information about the Partners’ Network, please contact Rebecca Ruvane (rruvane@cste.org).
A National Strategic Plan for Chronic Disease Surveillance Modernization
: The comprehensive, multi-year strategic plan details six core strategies that public health partners can implement to leverage a modernized information ecosystem to transform chronic disease surveillance and promote thriving, connected
communities. Although chronic diseases continue to be the leading causes of death in the United States, public health lacks the necessary data infrastructure to provide comprehensive and timely insights to inform public health action. This strategic
plan lays the foundation for an integrated and nimble surveillance infrastructure to reduce the burden of chronic disease in our country.
The Chronic Disease Surveillance Data Modernization Roadmap
is a supplement to the Chronic Disease Surveillance Data Modernization Strategic Plan. The roadmap serves as a practical guide for stakeholders involved in chronic disease surveillance. It outlines specific actions developed through strategic
planning, with each action aligned to a particular strategy and objective in the plan. The roadmap is not intended to be step-by-step guidance; rather, it aims to help partners identify which actions are most practical, feasible, and impactful to
implement in alignment with the overall vision and goals of the strategic plan. The roadmap can also be used as a framework for evaluation and shared accountability, as the near-term priority actions include “What Success Looks Like” components that
can be used as benchmarks to assess progress and sustain momentum.
The Chronic Disease Surveillance Modernization Implementation Toolkit
equips State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial (STLT) practitioners with the tools and guidance needed to put the Chronic Disease Surveillance Modernization Strategic Plan into action. It offers practical resources, real-world examples, and
ready-to-use templates to help you strengthen data infrastructure, enhance workforce capacity, improve data interoperability and use, and foster cross-sector partnerships.
Position Statements and Policy Briefs:
The CSTE Chronic Disease Subcommittee is developing the Chronic Disease Policy Brief— “Standardizing Case Definitions for Chronic Disease Surveillance”—focused on elevating the critical need for chronic condition case definitions to guide routine and
emergency public health surveillance. The policy brief will provide a framework for standardized surveillance of chronic conditions and document the importance of a standardized surveillance infrastructure for monitoring the health of hard to reach
and rural communities. Contact Preksha Malhotra (pmalhotra@cste.org) for questions about this brief.
CSTE has a long history of advocating for chronic disease surveillance methods for high-priority chronic diseases, stretching back to the 1990s. Several chronic disease
position statements exist and provide a foundation and justification for the value of continued work in this area.
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 ofChronic Disease Indicators (CDIs) to provide national and state estimates for a set of key surveillance indicators of chronic diseases and their risk factors. 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.
From the CDC Website: The original set of 73 indicators was released in 1999. It was developed by CDC, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and the Association of State and Territorial Chronic Disease Program Directors. In 2002,
the indicators were revised and expanded to 92 (published in 2004). CDC, CSTE, and the Chronic Disease Directors collaborated on this revision. For this revision,
indicators were evaluated for their relevance to chronic disease prevention and control at the state level and for the availability of data on an annual or biannual basis at the state level for most states. In addition, an attempt was made to select
indicators consistent with the national Healthy People 2010 objectives.
During 2012–2013, the indicators were revised and expanded to 202 indicators (published in 2015). CDC, CSTE, and the National Association of Chronic Disease
Directors (NACDD) collaborated on this revision. They conducted reviews and made recommendations for updating each indicator based on opinions from subject matter experts.
The most recent updates to the CDI indicator list and web tool were made between 2022-2024. A full summary of the CDI evolution can be found here.
Resources:
Chronic Disease Epidemiology Capacity
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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.
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2013 National Assessment of Epidemiology Capacity: Findings and Recommendations for Chronic Disease, Maternal and Child Health, and Oral HealthIn
April 2015, 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.
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Chronic Disease Epidemiology Orientation Manual: A Resource for Applied EpidemiologistsThe 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 and encourages more uniform knowledge among chronic disease epidemiologists.
The manual includes a guide for understanding the roles of 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.
For more information about the Chronic Disease Subcommittee, please contact Preksha Malhotra.Click hereto view other Chronic Disease and Maternal and Child Health Steering Committee activities.
