Ho Lai-ming

Much progress has been made on the development of novel systems for influenza surveillance, or explored the choices of algorithms for detecting the start of a peak season. The use of multiple streams of surveillance data has been shown to improve performance but few studies have explored its use in situational awareness to quantify level or trend of disease activity. In this study we propose a multivariate statistical approach which describes overall influenza activity and handles interrupted or drop-in surveillance systems.

Objective

This paper describes the use of multiple influenza surveillance data for situational awareness of influenza activity.

Surveillance systems utilizing early indicator of disease activity would be useful for monitoring community disease pattern and facilitating timely decision making on public health interventions in an evidence-based manner. School absenteeism has been previously considered as a possible syndromic approach for monitoring influenza activity. We explored the feasibility and practicability of establishing an electronic school absenteeism surveillance system in Hong Kong for monitoring influenza-like illness (ILI) and other diseases using automatically captured data employing smart card technology.

Objective

We examined the utility of an electronic school absenteeism system for monitoring multiple types of diseases.