Detecting Coherent Structures in Syndromic Time Series Using Wavelets

Temporally localized outbreaks occur in the presence of a complex background, greatly complicating both retrospective and real-time detection. Numerous techniques have been proposed for adjusting thresholds to account for this variable background. In this paper, we apply wavelet transforms to detect localized structures in health care time series, using a generalization of many of these viewpoints. A rigorous, nonparametric approach is applied in a general setting to identify coherent outbreaks.