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Social network modeling is a relatively new addition to the armament of public health and epidemiology. Epidemiologists and communicable disease control researchers have been turning to network analysis to address and understand gaps in traditional outbreak management techniques such as contact tracing. Network analysis has shown utility in the study of a range of communicable disease outbreaks affecting both health and commerce, including SARS, tuberculosis, syphilis and foot-and mouth-disease, and may have applications in automated disease surveillance systems. Visualization of these communicable disease networks is an integral component of such analysis. However, visualization of more complex relationships will require consideration of a variety of epidemiologic factors which affect these relationships, and the development of techniques to display them. Any analysis of case level health data has the potential for compromising privacy, and network visualization is no exception. Like other analysis tools such as data mining, or Geographic Information Systems (GIS), network visualization will need to incorporate techniques to ensure confidentiality. In this paper we shall discuss the role of network analysis in communicable disease outbreak control, epidemiologic considerations in visualizing networks, and the emerging issue of confidentiality., See also ADM002067., The original document contains color images. Epidemiologic Considerations in Network Modeling of Theoretical Disease Events. In Visualising Network Information (pp. 11-1 11-6). Meeting Proceedings RTO-MP-IST-063, Paper 11. Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: RTO.

A critical aspect of situation awareness is the level of abstraction of the objects and contents, which are displayed and analysed with a visualisation tool. To get a clear picture of the situation around you do not have to see everything that has been detected/known, but only information that is relevant to your needs. To make sure that the user is not overwhelmed with too much information, one must be able to switch on and off different layers of information as required. The main topic of discussion was the aspect of reliability and uncertainty of collected information. We concluded that the quality of information must be shown. As stated often during the workshop, the visualisation must be simple, clear and well defined. But the definition of simplicity depends on the role and the task of the operator. Operators will use visualization tools only when they see real benefit. As a last point the importance of data fusion was discussed., Presented at the Workshop of the RTO Panel on Information Systems Technology (IST), held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 17-20 Oct 2006. Published in proceedings of the same, AC/323(IST-063)TP/41, RTO-MP-IST-063, as BR-4; ISBN 92-837-1156-4, ISBN 978-92-837-1156-8. See also ADM002067. The original document contains color images.