The Syndromic Surveillance Program (SSP) of the Georgia Department of Public Health collects chief complaint data from hospitals to characterize health trends in near real time. These data were critical for situational awareness during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. In 2012, SSP and the Effingham County Schools began a project to collect syndromic surveillance data from school clinics. The hypothesis was that these data may be used to inform interventions during a pandemic, guide school health programs, elucidate health priorities in school-age populations, and quantify nursing staff needs in schools. Analysis of data from the first two pilot years has provided a novel look at the disparate burden of disease among students across schools in the county.
Objective
This project was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of schoolbased nurse clinic visit syndromic surveillance. Additional objectives include using clinic visit data to identify opportunities for health interventions at participating schools and to characterize the type and number of student visits to the school nurses. An electronic module was developed in the State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (SendSS) to facilitate data entry by participating school nurses and data management by the Georgia Department of Public Health.