Back To School 2024
Best Practices for Disease Surveillance and Prevention for a Healthy School Year
September 26, 2024
8:30am-10:00am
Agenda
8:30am-8:35am
Welcome
Maria Sciancalepore, MPA, CRA
Director – New Jersey Immunization Network
8:35am-8:45am
Jenish Sudhakaran, MPH
New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH)
Population Assessment Coordinator
8:45am-9:50am
Presentations:
Public Health in New Jersey: Background and Infrastructure
Nicole Lam, MPH
NJDOH
Epidemiologist
Healthcare & Public Health: A Collaborative Effort
Nicolette Wilson, MPH, MBS
NJDOH
Epidemiologist
Public Health Surveillance Overview
Meredith Bagger, MPH
NJDOH
Public Health Representative Trainee
The importance for surveillance, case definitions, complete data, and pertussis incidence
Partnerships in Public Health
Elizabeth Zaremski, MPH
NJDOH
Surveillance Coordinator
9:50am-10:00am
Q&A:
Learning Objectives
- Describe when, what, and how to contact a local health department to report communicable diseases or suspect outbreaks.
- Explain the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and allowable release of patient information to public health.
- Describe the importance of timely, accurate, and complete disease reports for purposes of public health response and surveillance.
- Develop mechanisms to strengthen relationships among partners in public health.
- List steps that can be taken to prevent and control the spread of infectious disease.
- Identify resources from the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) and the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) that provide information and guidance on immunization requirements, disease prevention and control measures, and other training resources.
Speakers
Jeni Sudhakaran, MPH
Jeni currently serves as the Population Assessment Coordinator for the Vaccine Preventable Disease Program. In this role, her responsibilities include identifying and monitoring pockets of under-immunized children by estimating immunization coverage and exemption rates among children in New Jersey schools. Additionally, she is the resident expert on the NJ State Sanitary Code for pupils in school, college rules, hospital rules, and the childhood immunization insurance law. She regularly provides presentations and technical assistance to the regulated communities on the importance of immunizations and compliance with the school immunization requirements. She has been with the New Jersey State Department of Health, specifically in the field of Public Health for over 20 years. She holds a master’s degree in public health with an emphasis in health systems & policy from the University of Medicine and Dentistry.
Nicole Lam, MPH
Nicole currently works as Research Scientist within NJ Department of Health (NJDOH), specializing in School Outbreaks as well as serving as a respiratory disease subject matter expert. Prior to this position, Nicole spent over ten years as part of the Regional Epidemiology Program within NJDOH, working with local health departments and public health partners on communicable disease.
Nicolette Wilson, MPH, MBS
Nicolette Wilson is currently a Research Scientist at New Jersey’s Department of Health Vaccine Preventable Disease Program. She attended Rutgers University where she received master’s degrees in Epidemiology and Biomedical Science. She has been with the program since 2020 where she acts as the SME for varicella and provides support for VPDP data analysis efforts.
Meredith Bagger, MPH
Meredith Bagger is a public health representative within the Vaccine Preventable Disease Program at the New Jersey Department of Health. She received her Master of Public Health in epidemiology of microbial diseases from the Yale School of Public Health. She has been a part of the surveillance team since 2023 and is the SME for acute flaccid myelitis.
Elizabeth Zaremski, MPH
Elizabeth Zaremski is the Surveillance Coordinator for the Vaccine Preventable Disease Program at the New Jersey Department of Health. She has a bachelor’s degree in public health and a master’s degree in epidemiology. She has worked in healthcare, healthcare research, and public health fields since 2001 with experience in minority health, financial and insurance-related barriers to healthcare for older adults, and communicable and infectious diseases.
