A Community of Practice (CoP) is defined as “a group of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis.”

The three distinct elements that comprise a CoP are:

• A community that enables interaction (such as discussions, collaborative activities, and relationship building),
• A shared domain of interest (such as such as syndromic surveillance), and
• A shared practice of experiences, stories, tools, and ways of addressing recurring problems.

This approach enables public health professionals to grow and mature while focusing on efforts to share knowledge and solve problems. Communities of Practice are a way of developing social capital, nurturing new knowledge, stimulating innovation, and sharing knowledge; Communities of practice knit people together with peers and their outputs can include leading practices, guidelines, knowledge repositories, technical problem and solution discussions, working papers, and strategies.

ISDS currently supports two Communities of Practice

The National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) Community of Practice: This is the primary community group for the National Syndromic Surveillance Program Community of Practice (NSSP CoP). ISDS, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, invites all interested Public Health practitioners and partners to participate in discussions in this space. You do NOT have to be an NSSP grant recipient to participate. Participation in the group does not require a paid ISDS membership and there is no fee associated with participation.

The One Health Surveillance Community of Practice : ISDS started the One Health Surveillance (OHS) Community of Practice to engage its members in the advancement of this important and topical field. We define OHS as the "collaborative, on-going, systematic collection and analysis of data from multiple domains to detect health related events and produce information which leads to actions aimed at attaining optimal health for people, animals, and the environment."

What are the benefits of participating?

• access to experts across the nation, including CDC and syndromic surveillance grantees, partners and stakeholders
• increased capacity to conduct syndromic surveillance through enhanced coordination across jurisdictions and organizations,
• versatile forums for solving problems and sharing solutions,
• established mechanism for receiving technical assistance,
• more efficient use of resources through collaborative efforts,
• peer-to-peer mentoring,
• access to a curated repository of syndromic surveillance tools and resources, and
• shared success stories and lessons learned.

View more information about communities of practice here.