Millions of people face substantial and sometimes devastating consequences from neurological disorders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) https://www.cdc.gov major project is called the “National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System” (NNCSS) https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/projects/ncss/index.html.
The goal is to use data and information technology to expand understanding of neurological conditions to improve health outcomes for people of all ages.
CDC’s NNCSS system hopes to help:
- Modernize CDC systems to create fully interoperable systems and tools
- Strengthen Data Science Informatics, and IT systems by increasing the public health workforce
- Coordinate data and IT investments through strong leadership
- Increase capacity to share public health data
- Support digital transformation by growing and expanding public and private partnerships.
The NNCSS will develop in three stages. The first stage will involve conducting demonstrations to last two years to study Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study will explore complex data sources using innovative analytic methods and then capture the lessons learned. The next step is to study costs to help determine which approaches should be used to help extend NNCSS to additional neurological conditions.
The system will eventually be able to calculate estimates on the number of new cases, the number of people with a range of other neurological conditions, and strengthen stakeholder collaboration to encourage further research on neglected neurological conditions.