Infectious Disease

Traditional surveillance systems only capture a fraction of the estimated 48 million yearly cases of foodborne illness in the United States due to few affected individuals seeking medical care and lack of reporting to appropriate authorities. Non-traditional disease surveillance approaches could be used to supplement foodborne illness surveillance systems.

Objective

We assessed whether foodservice reviews on Yelp.com (a business review site) can be used to support foodborne illness surveillance efforts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends implementing early targeted school closures as one of the front-line interventions to slow progression of a severe influenza pandemic before appropriate vaccine becomes available. However, prolonged school closures may impose unintended economic and social costs and consequences to students’ families. These costs and consequences have not been carefully evaluated. To better understand this unintended impact, we conducted five investigations of unplanned school closures lasting >=4 school days implemented for various reasons from August 2012 through May 2013. Each closure was investigated separately as a public health evaluation. School closures implemented for reasons other than pandemic influenza may serve as a proxy to pandemic-related closures. Our findings can inform updates to CDC’s pandemic preparedness guidance.

Historically, patients with TB have often been diagnosed late or after death. This delay in diagnosis often occurs because TB is misdiagnosed as an alternative respiratory illness (RI), such as pneumonia . TB infected patients that are not correctly diagnosed when initial symptoms occur may spread infection to others in both healthcare settings and the community.

Objective

To estimate the potential number of Tuberculosis (TB) cases that occur in inpatient and emergency department settings that are missed, diagnosed as something else, go untreated and return to the community, prior to receiving a correct diagnosis of TB. We analyze inpatient and emergency department records from the state of California from 2005-2011.

Influenza poses a global health threat. The disease affects all ages, often with variable clinical features.

Abidjan, where this study took place, has a long rainy season April-July with a shorter less intense rainy season October-November. Temperatures vary very little during the year. In temperate areas, children and adults aged >=65 years are risk groups. In these countries the seasonality of influenza is clearly defined, with seasonal epidemics in cold weather periods. But in the tropics, the risk groups of influenza are not as well defined. Also, the dynamics of influenza transmission and climatological parameters that influence it are specific to the tropical region and not as thoroughly studied.

Objective

This study aims to determine the epidemiological and clinical profiles of influenza infections related to different strains and the effect of climatological parameters on the temporal distribution of the disease for the prediction.

Since the adoption of antibiotics in the early 20th century, a plethora of clinical pathogens have acquired resistance to one or more modern-day antibiotics. This has resulted in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) being recognized as a severe threat to human and animal health worldwide. Recent work has demonstrated that AMR bacteria are widely prevalent in the environment, perhaps exacerbated by the widespread use of antibiotics for clinical or agricultural purposes.

Objective

To assess the temporal dynamics of airborne bacterial communities in four locations around the National Capital Region and the dispersion of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) genes present within them.

In 2012, Louisiana’s case rate for congenital syphilis was 49.2 cases per 100,000 live births, the highest in the nation and over six times the national average1. In Louisiana, case investigations for infants perinatally exposed to syphilis are initiated through two primary methods: SHP may receive a positive syphilis test on an infant or a syphilis-infected woman may be contacted and identified by Partner Services during pregnancy. This identification process is similar to perinatal HIV surveillance in Louisiana with one major exception: for perinatal HIV surveillance an annual birth match is completed. Through this match women known to be HIV-infected are matched to women who gave birth during the previous year. Over 90% of perinatal HIV exposures are identified prior to this match, but the match ensures that Louisiana’s HIV surveillance system identifies all infants perinatally exposed to HIV.

Objective

To identify infants perinatally exposed to syphilis in Louisiana that were missed by routine surveillance activities and to ensure that all infants perinatally exposed to syphilis are investigated.

 

In 2012, Louisiana’s case rate for congenital syphilis was 49.2 cases per 100,000 live births, the highest in the nation and over six times the national average1. In Louisiana, case investigations for infants perinatally exposed to syphilis are initiated through two primary methods: SHP may receive a positive syphilis test on an infant or a syphilis-infected woman may be contacted and identified by Partner Services during pregnancy. This identification process is similar to perinatal HIV surveillance in Louisiana with one major exception: for perinatal HIV surveillance an annual birth match is completed. Through this match women known to be HIV-infected are matched to women who gave birth during the previous year. Over 90% of perinatal HIV exposures are identified prior to this match, but the match ensures that Louisiana’s HIV surveillance system identifies all infants perinatally exposed to HIV.

Objective

To identify infants perinatally exposed to syphilis in Louisiana that were missed by routine surveillance activities and to ensure that all infants perinatally exposed to syphilis are investigated.

 

Reduction in HIV transmission needs continuous, comprehensive and effective communication channels to disseminate messages that will sustain efforts to motivate adolescents to engage in a range of options to reduce the risk of HIV infection. Life skills education, an integral part of school-based AIDS programs that include sexual and reproductive health information, has been a timely prevention effort in schools.1 This has proven to be an effective method in delaying the onset of sexual intercourse, and among sexually experienced youth, in increasing the use of condoms and decreasing the number of sexual partners. Life skills are behaviors that enable individuals to adapt to and deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. The life skills approach is an interactive, educational methodology that not only focuses on transmitting knowledge but also aims at shaping attitudes and developing interpersonal skills. The main goal of the life skills approach is to enhance young people’s ability to take responsibility for making healthier choices, resisting negative pressures, and avoiding risk behaviors. Limited studies have been done on assessing life skills of adolescents in schools. Findings from this study will provide baseline for programmatic scale up.

Objective

To assess the predictors of life-skills-based HIV/AIDS education on sexual behaviour among secondary school students in South West, Nigeria.

 

GFT is a surveillance tool that gathers data on local internet searches to estimate the emergence of influenza-like illness in a given geographic location in real time.3 Previously, GFT has been proven to strongly correlate with influenza incidence at the national and regional level.2,3 GFT has shown promise as an easily accessed tool to enhance influenza surveillance and forecasting; however, further geographic validation of city-level data is needed. 1,2,6

Objective

To test if Google Flu Trends (GFT) is predictive of the volume of influenza and pneumonia emergency department (ED) visits across multiple United States cities.

 

Active surveillance for influenza is a useful but costly endeavor. In recent years infoveillance tools have been developed to track and analyze data available on the Internet and social media (Eysenbach 2011). While infoveillance tools have been developed, few tools focus on geo-targeted data collection at a local level combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capability.

Objective

We developed geo-targeted social media application program interfaces (APIs) for Twitter and a web-based social media analytics and research testbed (SMART) dashboard to analyze “flu” related tweets. During the 2013-14 flu season, for 10 cities with active surveillance for influenza (ILI), we correlated weekly tweeting rates and visual patterns of flu tweeting rates. To facilitate widespread use and testing of this system, we developed an interactive webbased dashboard “SMART” that allows practitioners to monitor and visualize daily changes of flu trends and related flu news.