Data Analysis

Approximately 2.7 million Americans live with chronic HCV, with roughly 30,000 new cases in 2013. Fortunately, recent clinical trials have shown great advances using interferon-free, oral direct-acting antivirals, with cure rates over 95% . But only a few people have been treated, and most are unaware of the infection. This presents an opportunity for public health to address unmet needs, but most jurisdictions have limited surveillance and prevention efforts. Leveraging HCV surveillance, this analysis presents a cost-effective method to improve situational awareness and guide prevention efforts in Houston.

Objective

To describe the use of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) viral load (VL) results and geospatial analysis to guide prevention efforts.

Early detection of outbreaks is crucial in public health surveillance in order to enable rapid control measures. Statistical methods are widely used for outbreak detection but no study has proposed to evaluate and compare thoroughly the performance of these methods.

Objective

Evaluate the performance of 8 statistical methods for outbreak detection in health surveillance with historical data.

National Influenza Sentinel Surveillance (NISS) was established in Nigeria in 2006 to monitor influenza occurrence in humans in Nigeria and provide a foundation for detecting outbreaks of novel strains of influenza. Surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) is carried out in 4 sentinel sites. Specimens and epidemiological data are collected and transported 4 days a week from the sentinel sites to the National Influenza Reference Laboratory. At the laboratory, they are tested for influenza A and B viruses and further subtyped if positive for influenza A virus.

Objective

To assess the performance of the surveillance system and identify factors affecting the performance.

Syndromic surveillance ED data has historically shown the highest number of visits on Mondays, with decreasing volumes throughout the week. Previous studies have shown that increased negative health outcomes have occurred on Mondays. A study in the European Journal of Epidemiology provided evidence that suggests a higher incidence of cardiovascular events on Mondays compared to other days of the week.

Objective

To investigate the day of week effect on myocardial infarctions (MI) in the age group of 18 – 64 years using ESSENCE-FL emergency department (ED) data.

BioSense was launched in 2003 by CDC with its primary aim to establish an integrated system of nationwide public health surveillance for the early detection and prompt assessment of potential bioterrorism-related syndromes or other public health emergencies. With the release of CDC’s Surveillance Strategy, BioSense evolved into the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP). To overcome the challenges experienced throughout the integration of local and state level data to produce a real-time national all-hazards surveillance, CDC sought input from the National Syndromic Surveillance Community of Practice (NSSP CoP). They requested that CDC provide advanced syndromic surveillance functionalities and analytical applications, such as ESSENCE and SAS to improve the BioSense Platform. In response, CDC led this pilot project to: 1) conduct security testing of SAS and ESSENCE in order to identify vulnerabilities; 2) test and improve a limited set of processes that occur before data are transformed; and 3) conduct testing of ESSENCE’s functions to ensure the tool worked as intended, and that it will meet user needs.

Objective

To describe the results of a pilot project that examined selected BioSense 2.0 data processing rules and tested SAS and ESSENCE products in the BioSense platform.

Internet based technologies are becoming quite prominent among today’s generation due to its easy accessibility through computer or phone devices. Internet’s relative anonymity leads high risk groups to find it easier to meet sexual partners with similar characteristics through dating sites like Grindr, Jack’D, Adams4Adams etc. and mainstream social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. According to various studies, young MSMs prefer to use dating sites and social networking sites more as a source to meet sexual partners than older MSMs.

Objective

To assess the usage of dating sites and social networking sites for finding sexual partners among newly diagnosed HIV positive MSMs in Harris County in 2014

Although Marin County ranks as the healthiest county in California, it ranks poorly in substance abuse indicators, including drug overdose mortality.1 Death certificates do not always include specific detail on the substances involved in a drug overdose.2 This lack of specificity makes it difficult to identify public health issues related to specific prescription drugs in our community. We analyzed 2013 drug overdose death toxicology reports to determine if they could improve the description of drug overdose deaths in our community and to describe associated data characteristics.

Objective

To describe the potential impact of using toxicology data to support drug overdose mortality surveillance.

Although significant progress has been made in tobacco control in the United States (US) over the past 50 years, more than 15% of the population currently use tobacco products.1 Tobacco use continues to be the leading cause of preventable death, contributing to over 480,000 deaths and about $300 billion in economic costs each year. To achieve the Healthy People 2020 (HP2020) objective of 12% national adult smoking rate by 2020, it is important to focus our tobacco control efforts on surveillance and addressing disparities in tobacco use prevalence and tobacco-induced diseases across different subpopulations and geographic areas.2 Utah reported the lowest prevalence rate (9.7% in 2014), while rates as high as 28% were identified in central Appalachia. Modern epidemiology is limited in its ability to explain patterns of tobacco use and tobacco-related interventions and policies in these highly prevalent, marginalized environments. Therefore, a combination of quantitative and community-based participatory research (CBPR), as proposed in Public Health 3.0, will expand the scope and reach to address all factors of tobacco use, including cross-sector collaboration and multi-level actions.3 This study aimed to comprehensively investigate counties in the Northeast Tennessee region where tobacco use prevalence is disproportionately highest, and to identify regional and culturally specific evidence-based practices for tobacco control. Additionally, the study examined how these practices can be scaled up to address similar high tobacco use and disadvantaged populations elsewhere in the US and worldwide.

Objective

To examine community engagement as a means to strengthen tobacco-related policies and programs use in marginalized populations.

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.