Mass Gathering Surveillance

Mass gathering is defined by WHO as – “More than specified number of persons (which can be as few as 1000 persons to more than 25000) at a specific location for a specific purpose (social function, large public event or sports competition) for a defined period of time” . Mass gatherings are considered to have the potential for public health incidents, outbreaks and casualties attributed to the inevitable overcrowding in a place. Because populations are increasingly mobile, and more able to attend large gatherings, the risk for outbreaks of infectious diseases among a susceptible population has increased, and a substantial responsibility is placed on health services if outbreaks occur. Currently, there are no existing programmes of surveillance for mass gathering events in Wales. Although a variety of surveillance system exist, no systematic process is established to gather the information from important large events and collect into a common database for future reference and to study the impact. The number of people attending these gatherings in Wales range from few thousands to 250,000.

Objective

To identify the need of surveillance during mass gathering events in Wales by identifying a causal relationship between public health and characteristics of a mass gathering event grounded on risk assessment.

We assessed the impact of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on syndromic surveillance systems including the incidence of syndromic indictors and total contacts with health care.

Introduction

Mass gatherings can impact on the health of the public including importation of infectious diseases, exposure of international visitors to endemic diseases in the host country and the increased risk of bioterrorist activity. Public health surveillance during mass gatherings therefore affords an opportunity to identify, and quantify any impact (or reassure on the absence of impact) on public health in a timely manner. In preparation for the Games, Public Health England undertook a programme of work to expand the existing suite of syndromic surveillance systems to include daily general practitioner out of hours (GPOOH) consultations and emergency department (ED) attendances at sentinel sites. These new systems complemented existing syndromic surveillance systems offering the opportunity to monitor trends in patient contacts with GPs outside of normal day time opening hours, as well as potentially the more severe end of the disease spectrum which would present at EDs. We assessed the impact of the 2012 Olympics on national surveillance systems, comparing to periods before and after the Games and in previous years and also the impact of specific events during the Games.

LAC hosted the 2015 Special Olympics (SO) which welcomed approximately 6,500 athletes from 165 countries, as well as 30,000 volunteers and 500,000 spectators from July 25 to August 2, 2015. International athletes were not required to show proof of vaccinations and were housed in dormitories for nine days, creating potential for infectious disease outbreaks. In response to these unique public health challenges, we describe how LAC’s syndromic surveillance system (SSS), which captures over 65% of all Emergency Department (ED) visits, was used to detect potential emerging health events congruent with SO games and pre-game events.

Objective

To describe how syndromic surveillance was used to monitor health outcomes in near real-time during the 2015 Special Olympics in Los Angeles County (LAC), California.

Super Bowl XLIX took place on February 1st, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona. In preparation for this large scale public event and related activities, the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) developed methods for enhanced surveillance, situational awareness and early detection of public health emergencies.

Objective

To describe the enhanced epidemiologic surveillance efforts in place during Super Bowl XLIX and related events, review epidemiologic surveillance results, discuss novel approaches for near real-time surveillance for situational awareness and early event detection and examine lessons learned for surveillance strategies during mass gatherings.

Champaign County is one of the largest counties in central Illinois with a population of ~207,000 and is home to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which currently has 44,500 students. In the fall the university hosts Big Ten football games which have recently been drawing an average attendance of ~45,000 people, many traveling from Chicago or other parts of the Midwest. The twin cities host a number of community events and festivals throughout the Spring and Summer. Typically the community festivals have liquor licenses whereas no alcohol is served in the football stadium. Despite the lack of alcohol availability in the stadium many fans drink during tailgate parties before and after the game.

Objective

The objective for this research project was to see if there are predictable patterns for certain annual events in Champaign County, Illinois. The focus was on how alcohol intoxication effected the population and whether or not its effects were dangerous to the community at an alarming rate.