National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee

Overview
The National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee (NBAS) consists of prominent public and private biosurveillance stakeholders and contributors. As a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director of CDC (ACD), NBAS provides recommendations to the parent Committee regarding the broad range of issues affecting the development and implementation of a nationwide biosurveillance strategy for human health.

The membership of NBAS includes persons from public health, health-care delivery, academia, and others sectors. In developing their recommendations, NBAS conducted fact-finding activities, consulted with experts, and deliberated in small groups and as a whole to assess the state of the biosurveillance enterprise as it currently exists. NBAS found that there are wide variations in biosurveillance systems and capabilities. The use of these systems is not well defined, and there are not formal, coordinated, external mechanisms in place to evaluate systems and drive improvements.

As part of their advisory activities, NBAS envisioned future technology opportunities, and sought to address issues of sustainability of these efforts.