The exploration of epidemic dynamics on dynamically evolving ("adaptive") networks poses nontrivial challenges to the modeler, such as the determination of a small number of informative statistics of the detailed network state (that is, a few "good observables") that usefully summarize the overall (macroscopic, systems-level) behavior. Obtaining reduced, small size accurate models in terms of these few statistical observables - that is, trying to coarse-grain the full network epidemic model to a small but useful macroscopic one - is even more daunting. Here we describe a data-based approach to solving the first challenge: the detection of a few informative collective observables of the detailed epidemic dynamics. This is accomplished through Diffusion Maps (DMAPS), a recently developed data-mining technique. We illustrate the approach through simulations of a simple mathematical model of epidemics on a network: a model known to exhibit complex temporal dynamics. We discuss potential extensions of the approach, as well as possible shortcomings.