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Stephens Em

Description

As global temperatures increase, so too does interest in the effect of climate change on the population’s health. 2016 represented the hottest year on record globally and well above the 20th century average in Virginia. With large-scale climate change comes an increase in severe weather patterns, including heat waves. Heat waves can have immense health impacts on a community, including heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and dehydration. Previous analyses of emergency department (ED) data indicate that certain populations – specifically males and rural residents – are more at risk for heat-related illness. None of these studies, however, looked for temporal relationships between the population seeking care and the day of the week. Syndromic surveillance data can be used to further describe those communities affected by heat exposure as well as identify any temporal patterns in visits.

Objective:

To describe the differences in patient populations between those who seek care for heat exposure during the work week and those who seek care during the weekend.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

As part of a wide-spread community discussion on the presence of monuments to Confederate Civil War figures, the Charlottesville city council voted to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Multiple rallies were then held to protest the statue’s removal. A Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally on July 8, 2017 (MMWR Week 27) and a Unite the Right rally on August 12, 2017 (MMWR Week 32) held in Charlottesville both resulted in violence and media attention. The violence associated with the Unite the Right rally included fatalities connected to motor vehicle and helicopter crashes. Syndromic surveillance has been used to study the impact of terrorism on a community’s mental health while more traditional data sources have looked at the impact of racially-charged civil unrest. Syndromic surveillance, however, has not previously been used to document the effect of racially-charged violence on the health of a community.

Objective:

To describe the impact of civil unrest on the mental health of a community in near real-time using syndromic surveillance.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

While UC does not have a standard definition, it can generally be described as the delivery of ambulatory medical care outside of a hospital emergency department (ED) on a walk-in basis, without a scheduled appointment, available at extended hours, and providing an array of services comparable to typical primary care offices. UC facilities represent a growing sector of the United States healthcare industry, doubling in size between 2008 and 2011. The Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) estimates that UC facilities had 160 million patient encounters in 2013. This compares to 130.4 million patient encounters in EDs in 2013, as reported by the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Public Health (PH) is actively working to broaden syndromic surveillance to include urgent care data as more individuals use these services. PH needs justification when reaching out to healthcare partners to get buy-in for collecting and reporting UC data.

Objective:

Provide justification for the collection and reporting of urgent care (UC) data for public health syndromic surveillance.

Submitted by elamb on
Description

Nationally, deaths due to opioid overdose have continually increased for the past 15 years . Deaths specifically related to heroin increased more than four-fold between 2002 and 2014. Hospital inpatient discharge data provide information on non-fatal overdoses, but include a significant lag in reporting time. Syndromic ED visit data provide near real-time identification of public health issues and can be leveraged to inform public health actions on the emerging threat of drug overdose.

Objective

To develop and evaluate syndrome definitions for the identification of acute unintentional drug overdose events including opioid, heroin, and unspecified substances among emergency department (ED) visits in Virginia.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on

More and more patients frequent Urgent Care facilites. In this webinar, we will discuss how NSSP jurisdictions collect it, how is it formatted, and what have they learned; what's the best way to capture and share this information; and why should we collect and report this data.

Presenters

David Swenson, AHEDD Project Manager, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health Services, Communicable Disease Surveillance Section