There has been much research on statistical methods of prospective outbreak detection that are aimed at identifying unusual clusters of one syndrome or disease, and some work on multivariate surveillance methods. In England and Wales, automated laboratory surveillance of infectious diseases has been undertaken since the early 1990’s. The statistical methodology of this automated system is described in. However, there has been little research on outbreak detection methods that are suited to large, multiple surveillance systems involving thousands of different organisms.
Objective
To look at the diversity of the patterns displayed by a range of organisms, and to seek a simple family of models that adequately describes all organisms, rather than a well-fitting model for any particular organism.