Skip to main content

Heitzinger Kristen

In 2016, the BioSense Platform for national syndromic surveillance made substantial enhancements including data processing changes, a national ESSENCE instance, and management tools to support diverse data sharing needs. On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred over much of the United States. The event resulted in large gatherings over multiple days to areas in the Path of Totality (PoT). In the days leading up to the event, public health and emergency preparedness included syndromic surveillance in their monitoring plans. To support this effort, Illinois (IL), Kentucky (KY), and Tennessee (TN) established inter-jurisdictional aggregate data sharing to get a more inclusive view of cause-specific illness or injury in Emergency Department (ED) visits before, during, and after the eclipse.

Objective:

Describe cross-jurisdictional data sharing practices using ESSENCE and facilitated by the BioSense Platform for a national mass gathering event, and the dashboard views created to enhance local data for greater situational awareness.

Submitted by elamb on

In general, data from public health surveillance can be used for short- and long-term planning and response through retrospective data analysis of trends over time or specific events. Combining health outcome data (e.g., hospitalizations or deaths) with environmental and socio-demographic information also provides a more complete picture of most vulnerable populations. Using syndromic surveillance systems for climate and health surveillance offers the unique opportunity to help quantify and track in near-real time the burden of disease from climate and weather impacts.

Submitted by uysz on
Subscribe to Heitzinger Kristen