Key points
This report includes all non-CDC-hosted scientific meetings held in FY 2020 where the expenses associated with the scientific meeting exceeded $30,000. The descriptions include location, how the event advanced the agency's mission, and total attendance.
About the report
In compliance with the 21st Century Cures Act this report includes all non-CDC-hosted scientific meetings held in FY 2020 where the 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 and
- The total number of individuals whose travel expenses or other scientific meeting expenses were paid by the agency
Total number of scientific meetings
(travel paid by CDC)
(travel paid by CDC)
Center for Global Health
50th Union World Congress on Lung Health – Declaring our Rights: Social and Political Solutions
Dates: October 30–November 2, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: The Hague, Netherlands
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The 50th Union World Conference on Lung Health brought together researchers, global advocates, scientists, healthcare professionals, students, and community members working on all aspects of lung health. The conference theme "Declaring Our Rights: Social and Political Solutions," highlighted that eliminating tuberculosis (TB) and achieving the health-related sustainable development goals requires a coordinated public health response driven by the human rights of each individual. This conference provided a unique environment to link science, human rights, and policy in the design of public health responses, and provided a platform for the latest science and policy discussions that inform public health measures grounded in human rights. The conference also provided a forum for CDC staff to discuss and develop strategic and programmatic approaches to improve global TB control and prevention, as well the opportunity to provide targeted technical assistance to National TB and TB/HIV programs.
Description of exceptional circumstances: The conference directly supported CGH's, NCHHSTP's, and NCEZID's mission to prevent and control TB and to reduce TB rates in the United States and abroad as it allowed CGH, NCHHSTP, and NCEZID staff to present and share with public health officials and global health partners recent important TB and TB/HIV scientific findings. The conference provided a unique forum for CDC to discuss and develop strategic and programmatic approaches to improve global TB control and prevention, as well the opportunity to provide targeted technical assistance to national TB and TB/HIV programs. During the conference, CDC subject matter experts (SMEs) were able to present and share important scientific findings as well as lead a number of symposiums to bring global partners together to discuss and develop strategic and programmatic approaches to improve global TB and TB/HIV control and prevention. Participation of CDC SMEs in this conference was critical for preventing, controlling, and ending TB, which is a high priority for the global health community, including CDC and other USG agencies such as USAID, NIH, and OGAC. In additions to presenting and sharing CDC's TB and TB/HIV work, they shared lessons learned and ideas to meet the global goal to End TB by 2035. If CDC could not have participated in this conference, it would have been a missed opportunity for CDC SMEs to discuss important strategic and programmatic approaches to improve global TB control and prevention at the national or local level and opportunities for targeted technical assistance with public health officials and global health partners.
Total estimated cost: $158,944
Total attendees: 31
Total feds on travel: 31
Total non-feds on travel: 0
68th American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Annual Meeting
Dates: November 20–24, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: National Harbor, Maryland
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, founded in 1903, is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health. They accomplish this through generating and sharing scientific evidence, informing health policies and practices, fostering career development, recognizing excellence, and advocating for investment in tropical medicine/global health research.
Total estimated cost: $478,511
Total attendees: 157
Total feds on travel: 157
Total non-feds on travel: 0
Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services
9th Annual Conference of the American Society of Health Economists 2020
Dates: June 8–9, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Virtual
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon) is a professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence in health economics research in the United States. Health economics has emerged as a distinct and successful field in economics—and the field contains a large community of researchers bringing theoretical and empirical insights based on the discipline of economics to policy-relevant issues in health care costs, outcomes, health behavior, and health care delivery. The theme of this year's conference was the "Crossroads of Public Policy and Health Economics," and provided a forum for presenting emerging ideas and empirical results (as well as methodological advances in current health economics), to be showcased and discussed to facilitate the development of the next generation of health economics scholars.
Total estimated cost: $45,405
Total attendees: 17
Total feds: 17
Total non-Feds: 0
American College of Preventive Medicine Annual Conference
Dates: July 15 and 29, 2020; August 12, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Virtual
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: ACPM and CDC share similar missions in addressing the areas of population health practice, clinical preventive medicine, and lifestyle medicine practice, informatics, and quality medical care. The annual conference consists of a full range of clinical practice areas within population medicine and provides practitioners with opportunities to increase public health and policy skills, as well as relevant clinical knowledge. CDC sets many standards for general clinical care, leadership, and core preventive medicine to measure epidemiological impact and cost-effectiveness, assess and respond to occupational and environmental health disorders, and support collaboration between state and local public health partners. Having CDC attendees at this conference allowed the agency to connect with others within these practices and increased their knowledge in these areas to allow the agency to put out the best guidelines and standards.
Total estimated cost: $44,551
Total attendees: 21
Total feds: 21
Total non-feds: 0
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
National Birth Defects Prevention Network 23rd Annual Meeting
Dates: March 8–11, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Washington, DC
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: This meeting supported CDC's mission by furthering the goals of providing national and international leadership for birth defects research, surveillance, intervention, and prevention activities. It brought together public health staff, scientists, researchers and representatives of various organizations with an interest in birth defects to discuss current issues in birth defects research, surveillance, intervention, and prevention, and enhanced the birth defects programs and activities of NCBDDD.
Description of exceptional circumstances: A variety of topics was featured including: collaborations with Maternal and Child Health programs, birth defects and environmental exposures, records linkage, neural tube defect prevention, birth defects surveillance methodology, clinical review, research projects, emerging threats, and multi-program research collaborations. This meeting helped further HHS's mission because of its structure to enable grantee and non-grantee states to meet with each other. This meeting provided a proper forum to further the HHS Healthy People 2020 goals related to birth defects, NCBDDD, and the Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders strategic plans. Partners and HHS staff also shared information on birth defects surveillance, research, and prevention activities, and developed ideas, plans, strategies, and timelines for the initiation and enhancement of new and continuing partnerships and collaborations. This was in fact the only national conference for all population-based birth defects surveillance programs in the United States, and participation by CDC staff was important for coordinating activities across the birth defects surveillance networks in the United States and internationally.
Total estimated cost: $176,351
Total attendees: 52
Total feds on travel: 0
Total non-feds on travel: 52
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
American Association for the Study of Liver Disease: The Liver Meeting 2019
Dates: November 8–12, 2019
Venue, city, state, or country: Boston, Massachusetts
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: AASLD is the leading organization of scientists and health care professionals committed to preventing and curing liver disease. They foster research that leads to improved treatment options for millions of liver disease patients. They advance the science and practice of hepatology through educational conferences, training programs, professional publications, and partnerships with government agencies and sister societies. The American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD): The Liver Meeting 2019 AASLD conference enabled staff to gain greater awareness of the latest advances in viral hepatitis treatment and elimination and participate in public health track discussions. The conference also provided information to advance and disseminate the science and practice of hepatology, and to promote liver health and quality patient care.
Total estimated cost: $30,572
Total attendees: 11
Total feds on travel: 11
Total non-feds on travel: 0
Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2020
Dates: March 8–11, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Virtual
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The 2020 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was a scientifically focused meeting of the world's leading researchers working to understand, prevent, and treat HIV/AIDS and its complications. CROI is one of the leading biomedical conferences on HIV in the world, and particularly for the United States. In addition, CROI provides a forum for up-to-date information on emerging prevention strategies such as vaccines and other biomedical interventions. At recent CROI conferences, ground-breaking data have been presented on pre-exposure prophylaxis, HIV diagnostics (including home HIV testing), methods for and findings from HIV surveillance (including behavioral and clinical surveillance). The conference participants were select leading researchers and clinicians working in laboratory and clinical research as well as epidemiology and surveillance. Topic areas of specific interest to CROI participants and presenters included:
- Studies of antiretroviral therapy
- Complications of HIV infection
- AIDS-related malignancies in pediatrics/adolescents
- Mother-to-child transmission
- HIV in women/women's health
- HIV clinical diagnostics
- Epidemiology of HIV infection
- Prevention studies
CDC researchers are among the leading scientists in these areas, and CDC benefited greatly from the opportunity for them to present and discuss their work in this forum. The conference was kept to a relatively small size conducive to formal and informal scientific and collaborative exchange. This allowed attendees better access to senior level, innovative, and internationally known researchers and provided an excellent means to build and maintain collaborations. This level of interaction benefited CDC's attendees and strengthened CDC's future efforts.
Total estimated cost: $62,427
Total attendees: 72
Total feds: 72
Total non-feds: 0
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
2020 Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration Annual Meeting and Exhibit
Dates: February 23–26, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Phoenix, Arizona
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: The SME Annual Meeting is the preeminent mining conference of the year, and the one with a program most closely tied to the NIOSH Mining Program's mission of improving mine safety and health through research and education. This is one of the key meetings of people who influence areas related to mine worker health and safety. As such, CDC employees' participation is directly related to our mission.
Total estimated cost: $131,787
Total attendees: 55
Total feds on travel: 55
Total non-feds on travel: 0
American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Expo 2020
Dates: May 19–24, 2020
Venue, city, state, or country: Virtual
How the meeting advanced the mission of the agency: American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Expo provided an important source of information on occupational safety and health covered a wide variety of topic areas, including those representing the specific programmatic categories in the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) Program Portfolio for agriculture, construction, trade, transportation, public and private services, healthcare, and manufacturing. NIOSH staff obtained important feedback from public and private sector workplace manager, and occupational safety and health professionals about safety health issues impacting their workers. This information was used to shape the NIOSH occupational and safety health research agenda, as well as the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) which NIOSH administers.
Total estimated cost: $40,580
Total attendees: 65
Total feds: 65
Total non-feds: 0