At a glance
This report includes Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-hosted scientific meetings held in fiscal year (FY) 2019 where net expenses associated with the scientific meeting exceeded $30,000. The description includes dates of the events, how they advanced the mission of the agency, and number of attendees.
About the report
In compliance with the 21st Century Cures Act this report includes all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-hosted scientific meetings held in fiscal year (FY) 2019 where the net expenses associated with the scientific meeting exceeded $30,000. The descriptions include:
- The date of the scientific meeting.
- The location of the scientific meeting.
- A brief explanation of how the scientific meeting advanced the mission of the agency.
- A description of exceptional circumstances for scientific meeting where expenses exceeded $150,000.
- The total scientific meeting expenses incurred by the agency for the scientific meeting.
- The total number of individuals whose travel expenses or other scientific meeting expenses were paid by the agency.
FY 2019 scientific meetings
(travel paid by CDC)
(travel paid by CDC)
Center for Preparedness and Response
Division of State and Local Readiness Career Epidemiology Field Officer (CEFO) Scientific Annual Meeting
Dates: October 30, 2018–November 2, 2018
Venue, city, state, or country: CDC Headquarters, Atlanta, GA
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: Career Epidemiology Field Officers (CEFOs) serve as critical resources for state and local public health departments to build and strengthen capability and capacity to respond more effectively to public health threats. The CEFOs directly support and provide technical and scientific expertise to aid in ensuring that state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments achieve all-hazards preparedness. This event directly supports the Center for Preparedness and Response (CPR) and Division of State and Local Readiness (DSLR) mission and CDC's priorities to support national preparedness activities. CEFOs charged with providing technical assistance to state, local, and territorial public health programs will present to and learn from each other during this event using their unique perspectives from the frontlines. Additionally, this meeting provides a significant orientation for CEFOs who recently joined the program. This meeting will help orient or refresh the knowledge of all CEFOs to CPR and DSLR programs, their roles in their field assignments, and state-of-the-art lessons they can use to meet public health emergency preparedness and response objectives in their assigned jurisdictions. CPR/DSLR will fully use the opportunities this meeting provides to train CEFOs to advance public health emergency preparedness capabilities and capacities in their assigned jurisdictions. The meeting will help ensure that CEFO activities in the field adhere to CDC standards and requirements, and thereby promote a uniform state and local approach to public health actions consistent with CDC guidance. The direct sharing of critical knowledge gleaned from frontline experiences with DSLR leadership will reduce training costs.
Total estimated cost: $66,689
Total attendees: 78
Total feds on travel: 34
Total non-feds on travel: 0
Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services
68th Annual Epidemic Intelligence Service Conference
Dates: April 28, 2019–May 3, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: Sheraton Hotel, Atlanta, GA
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The primary mission for the Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Laboratory Services (CSELS) is to provide scientific service, expertise, skills, and tools in support of CDC's national efforts to promote health; prevent disease, injury and disability; and prepare for emerging health threats. The Division of Scientific Education and Professional Development (DSEPD) has a strategic priority to prepare the public health workforce for 21st Century public health challenges. The Epidemiology Workforce Branch (EWB) is that entity responsible for implementing a major part of that strategic goal by annually training a class of approximately 80 Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers who will provide service to CDC and state and local health agencies as part of their two-year training program. The EIS officer training program consists of a number of Core Activities of Learning (CALS) that officers must complete in the course of their 2 years so that they may successfully graduate from the program. The EIS Conference was a public forum to showcase the research that the officers had done and gave them an opportunity to complete one of the CALS, presenting their work before a large audience of scientific and public health communities.
Description of exceptional circumstances: The EIS Conference ties directly to the mission of CDC as an agency and is regarded as a priority event by the CDC Office of the Director. It highlights the elite scientific and epidemiological activities at CDC, and it also serves as a vital continuing education opportunity for the nation's public health professionals, health scientists, and epidemiologists. This annual event is an important forum for improving health security and fostering collaboration among public health care workers. Additionally, without the conference many of the attendees would not meet their continuing education requirements.
Total estimated cost: $949,046
Total attendees: 2,018
Total feds on travel: 360
Total non-feds on travel: 74
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
Surgeon General’s Listening Session on Oral Health
Dates: November 26–27, 2018
Venue, city, state, or country: Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The Division of Oral Health (DOH) supports state and territorial oral health programs, collects surveillance data on oral diseases, and develops and promotes adherence to infection prevention and control guidelines for dental health care personnel. To advance this mission, DOH held the Surgeon General's listening session to identify and discuss significant oral health topics to inform the 2020 Surgeon General's report on oral health.
Total estimated cost: $74,501
Total attendees: 31
Total feds on travel: 20
Total non-feds on travel: 11
National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Annual Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Surveillance Meeting
Dates: July 23–24, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: Hyatt Centric Midtown Hotel, Atlanta, GA
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable fatal disease with limited data concerning the prevalence, incidence and causes of ALS in the United States. Congress enacted the ALS Registry Act (S. 1382) in 2008 and directed CDC to establish and administer the National ALS Registry. This meeting was convened to meet the requirements of the ALS Registry Act which directs CDC to establish a committee to review information and make recommendations to the Secretary concerning the development and maintenance of the National ALS Registry; the type of information to be collected and stored in the Registry; the manner in which such data is to be collected and stored in the Registry; the use and availability of such data including guidelines for such use; and the collection of information about diseases and disorders that primarily affect motor neurons that are considered essential to furthering the study and cure of ALS.
Total estimated cost: $48,887
Total attendees: 60
Total feds on travel: 10
Total non-feds on travel: 10
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Annual Meeting
Dates: June 25–26, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: Grand Hyatt Hotel, Denver, CO
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The purpose of the event was to present a summary of vaccine safety issues or research study abstracts. The Immunization Safety Office (ISO) of CDC/ATSDR provides leadership and expertise in immunization safety research and surveillance to help ensure safety of vaccines that play a key role in improving the public's health. The VSD Annual Meeting is a key meeting that occurs annually among the VSD project investigators and has been taking place for over 20 years. The VSD meeting produces many important decisions and critical guidance as well as direction to current and future studies which address/respond to vaccine safety concerns raised by policy makers and the public.
Description of exceptional circumstances: This VSD conference is a key gathering that occurs annually among the VSD project investigators and has been taking place for over 20 years. The conference produces many important decisions and critical guidance, as well as direction to current and future studies which address/respond to vaccine safety concerns raised by policy makers and the public. Many of these discussions do not occur without this type of in-person interaction and dialogue. We attribute many of the successes of the VSD to the annual conference, where important, novel ideas have been advanced by this expert group. Not having an annual conference would jeopardize the CDC/VSD's critical role as the cornerstone of our nation's vaccine safety system.
Total estimated cost: $180,051
Total attendees: 73
Total feds on travel: 11
Total non-feds on travel: 62
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
The HIV Outpatient Study Annual Investigators Meeting
Dates: April 4–6, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: Marriott Hotel, St. Petersburg, FL
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: This meeting allows study investigators to assess data being used from this study to monitor the progress in achieving the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, which include but are not limited to the examination of trends in the epidemiology of chronic HIV disease in this aging population; the identification of association and interactions between HIV disease, antiretroviral therapy, and other comorbidities.
Total estimated cost: $30,760
Total attendees: 39
Total F=feds on T=travel: 3
Total non-feds on travel: 36
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS)
Dates: October 16–18, 2018
Venue, city, state, or country: Marriott Waterfront Place, Morgantown, WV
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: Through the National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS), NIOSH continues to provide a forum for the presentation of state-of-the-art occupational injury research, and the opportunity to develop and foster partnerships and collaborations among various researchers, industry, labor, government and other partners who share a common interest in the prevention of occupational injuries. The symposium provided the opportunity for occupational injury researchers to present their latest findings and methods and share their occupational injury prevention research with others in the occupational injury prevention community and highlighted numerous successes in transferring research to the workplace for prevention. The symposium also provided an opportunity for NIOSH scientists to disseminate research findings and prevention strategies to a broad spectrum of researchers and safety and health professionals, and to build partnerships for future research collaborations in the area of occupational injury prevention research — all keys to accomplishing the NIOSH mission.
Total estimated cost: $145,809
Total attendees: 340
Total feds on travel: 106
Total non-feds on travel: 2
Advancing Workers Compensation Opioids Research (AWCOR)
Dates: July 10, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: CDC Alice Hamilton Lab, Cincinnati, OH
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: This conference directly supported the CDC NIOSH mission to combat the ongoing opioid epidemic and reduce opioid related death and misuse. The purpose was to bring together workers compensation and public health organizations to discuss specific ways to use workers' compensation data (and other data sources such as prescription drug monitoring programs) to address research gaps related to opioid use/misuse and workplace exposures.
Total estimated cost: $45,700
Total attendees: 60
Total feds on travel: 14
Total non-feds on travel: 20
National Institute for Occupational Safety Health Intramural Science Meeting
Dates: July 30–August 1, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: NIOSH Facility, Morgantown, WV
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The intramural science meeting brought NIOSH laboratory and applied researchers from across the spectrum of scientific research (basic research to field application) to discuss common issues, current/planned projects, network with other NIOSH scientists and identify opportunities for collaboration.
Total estimated cost: $57,141
Total attendees: 95
Total feds on travel: 71
Total non-feds on travel: 0
Working Hours, Sleep, and Fatigue: Meeting the Needs of American Workers and Employers
Dates: September 13–14, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: The Coeur d'Alene Resort Hotel & Conference Center, Coeur d'Alene, ID
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: This meeting was directly related to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) mission of developing new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and to transfer that knowledge into practice. This meeting also supported an objective of the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) Healthy Work Design and Well-Being (HWD) Cross-Sector program, namely, to determine research gaps and needs and effective countermeasures related to working hours, sleep, and fatigue among U.S. workers and employers. This meeting offered opportunities for NIOSH and occupational fatigue experts to share knowledge about health and safety risks associated with shift work and long work hours and research needs around these risks.
Total estimated cost: $41,310
Total attendees: 75
Total feds on travel: 20
Total non-feds on travel: 2