CDC issued a grants notice (CDC-RFA-HK08-802) on June 19th to plan, develop, and evaluate the concept for a regional surveillance collaborative using technology. According to the announcement, monitoring the entire U.S. and then following up on any aberrations in patterns of health using syndromic surveillance is simply too large to be centralized in one agency such as CDC.
Regions will be defined as groups of public health agencies (or authorized organizations) that represent populations in multiple geo-political areas (e.g. multiple states within a contiguous geographic area of the U.S., multiple localities with a geographic area that crosses state borders).
Eligibility is limited to nonprofit and for profit organizations (other than small business), universities, colleges, research institutions, state and local governments or their bona fide agents.
The closing date for applications is July 21, 2008 and the estimated total program funding is $500,000 with one award. For more information, go to www.grants.gov or call 1-770-488-2700.
