An Evaluation of Heat-Related Emergency Department Visits Based on Differences in Heat Syndrome Definitions in Northern Illinois

Comparison of heat-related health effects across regions or among different syndromic surveillance systems is problematic due to the lack of a standardized heat-related syndrome definition. While a national standard for common heat-related syndromes would facilitate data comparisons, local customization of syndromes to adjust for unique public health events or characteristics is often necessary to optimize use of syndromic surveillance data.

Objective

To determine differences in case detection using different syndrome definitions for heat-related health effects.