Symptoms of influenza-like illness (ILI) were reported daily by health workers via the integrated syndromic surveillance system in rural China (ISSC)(1).
Objective
To analyze the growth and variation of ILI reports using individual growth curve model.
Despite the global emergence of syndromic surveillance systems and theories in recent years, the practical performance of this surveillance method under real circumstances had been rarely evaluated, especially in resource-limited areas. Since April 2012, a syndromic surveillance system named 'ISSC' has been established among health care facilities, pharmacies and primary schools in two rural counties (County A & B) of Jiangxi Province, China.
Objective
Our aim was to explore the practical performance of ISSC system through investigating the characteristics and verifying results of alert signals raised during real-time surveillance periods.
Since April 2012, an integrated syndromic surveillance system (ISSC) has been established in health facilities, pharmacies and primary schools in two rural counties of Jiangxi Province, China (1). The objective of ISSC is to integrate syndromic surveillance with case report system for infectious disease to improve the early detection of disease outbreak in rural China. Varicella is a common respiratory infectious disease among children. In most cases, it is mild but it might cause severe complications including, pneumonia, meningitis, even death (2). In this study, varicella related school absenteeism and outpatient visits in health facilities in the surveillance sites of ISSC were collected and analyzed.
Objective
To describe the features of varicella outbreak in rural primary schools and the impacts of school absenteeism surveillance on early detection of infectious disease outbreak.
The evaluation of outbreak detection performance remained a major challenge to every syndromic surveillance system. Owing to the scarcity and uncertainty of infectious disease outbreaks in the real world, simulated outbreak datasets have been commonly used by scholars for performance evaluation. Although this method was powerful in estimating the performance of syndromic surveillance across a variety of outbreak scenarios, the inevitable differences between simulation and authentic outbreak event limited its external validity.
Objective
Our study aimed to conduct high-fidelity simulations based on real-world outbreaks for evaluating the performance of syndromic surveillance system.
Syndromic surveillance has great advantages in promoting the early detection of infectious disease outbreak and enabling the real-time tracking of on-going epidemics. However, establishing a syndromic surveillance system required huge investment in money, information system, manpower and capacity building activities, which remains a big challenge in resource-limited areas. Funded by European Union's 7th Framework Programme, a syndromic surveillance system named 'ISSC' was prepared to be built and incorporated with the existing case report system in rural Jiangxi Province of China.
Objective
Before the start of ISSC project, a pilot investigation was carried out among the candidate surveillance units (health care facility, pharmacy and primary school) and related stakeholders to assess their capacity and potential needs with regard to the implementation of ISSC system, so as to design customized capacity building and training strategies.
Aberration detection methods are essential for analyzing and interpreting large quantity of nonspecific real-time data collected in syndromic surveillance system. However, the challenge lies in distinguishing true outbreak signals from a large amount of false alarm (1). The joint use of surveillance algorithms might be helpful to guide the decision making towards uncertain warning signals.
Objective
To develop and test the method of incorporating different control bars for outbreak detection in syndromic surveillance system
To meet the long-term needs of public health and social development of China, it is in urgency to establish a comprehensive response system and crisis management mechanism for public health emergencies. Syndromic surveillance system has great advantages in promoting early detection of epidemics and reducing the burden of disease outbreak confirmation. The effective method to set up the syndromic surveillance system is to modify existing case report system, improve the organizational structures and integrate new function with the traditional system.
Objective
To understand the structure and capacity of current infection disease surveillance system, and to provide baseline information for developing syndromic surveillance system in rural China.
Absenteeism has great advantages in promoting the early detection of epidemics1. Since August 2011, an integrated syndromic surveillance project (ISSC) has been implemented in China2. Distribution of the absenteeism generally are asymmetry, zero inflation, truncation and non-independence3. For handling these encumbrances, we should apply the Zero-inflated Mixed Model (ZIMM).
Objective
To describe and explore the spatial and temporal variability via ZIMM for absenteeism surveillance in primary school for early detection of infectious disease outbreak in rural China.
Absenteeism has been considered as a potential indicator for the early detection of infectious disease outbreaks in population, especially in primary schools. However, in practice this data are often characterized by an excess of zeros and spatial heterogeneity. In a project on integrated syndromic surveillance system (ISSC) in rural China, Random effect zero-inflated Poisson (RE-ZIP) model was applied to simultaneously quantify the spatial heterogeneity for “occurrence” and “intensity” on school absenteeism data.
Objective
To describe and explore the spatial heterogeneity via Random effects zero-inflated Poisson model (RE-ZIP) for absenteeism surveillance in primary school for early detection of infectious disease outbreak in rural China.
Syndromic surveillance system has been developed and implemented all over the world, and many studies showed that syndromic data sources had improved timeliness towards traditional surveillance method in the early warning of some infectious disease epidemics. However, owing to the uncertainties of disease epidemic features, clinical manifestations and population behaviors, the early warning timeliness of syndromic data sources might change across time and population, and few studies had explored their consistency in different epidemic periods of infectious diseases.
Objective
To study and compare the timeliness of syndromic surveillance system for the early warning of infectious diseases among different epidemic seasons.