president’s & executive director’s message
years. It’s fascinating. We have fellowships
in bioinformatics and the fellows are just
wonderful young people who are eager
to do great things in public health. They
really are our future.
Bartkus: Another thing that has
influenced my thinking about data, and
the way we need to work, is that it’s
not going to be done in any one place.
One of the priorities on APHL’s strategic
map is to develop partnerships or better
relationships with nontraditional partners
for data analytics. This morning I heard
about Florida’s work with Eastern Equine
Encephalitis virus, their collaboration
with a variety of partners on the genomic
epidemiology of that virus, and how
that collaboration resulted in a better
understanding of how viruses from
Florida end up in New York via migrating
birds. This is information that we never
would have had until we had pulled
together all the data—not only about
the sequencing but information about
the birds and the geology of the regions.
Putting all that data together requires
multiple partners. Public health is a part
of it but we’re not all of it.
Sullivan: Speaking of using non-traditional
tools and laboratory practice, you were telling
us a story during the intro about social media
use for a Minnesota case?
Bartkus: At a local park in St. Paul,
somebody observed a w