Eclipse

In 2016, the BioSense Platform for national syndromic surveillance made substantial enhancements including data processing changes, a national ESSENCE instance, and management tools to support diverse data sharing needs. On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse occurred over much of the United States. The event resulted in large gatherings over multiple days to areas in the Path of Totality (PoT). In the days leading up to the event, public health and emergency preparedness included syndromic surveillance in their monitoring plans. To support this effort, Illinois (IL), Kentucky (KY), and Tennessee (TN) established inter-jurisdictional aggregate data sharing to get a more inclusive view of cause-specific illness or injury in Emergency Department (ED) visits before, during, and after the eclipse.

Objective:

Describe cross-jurisdictional data sharing practices using ESSENCE and facilitated by the BioSense Platform for a national mass gathering event, and the dashboard views created to enhance local data for greater situational awareness.

Oregon’s statewide syndromic surveillance system (Oregon ESSENCE) has been operational since 2012. Non-federal emergency department data (and several of their associated urgent care centers) are the primary source for the system, although other data sources have been added, including de-identified call data from OPC in 2016. OPHD epidemiologists have experience monitoring mass gatherings and have a strong relationship with OPC, collaborating on a regular basis for routine and heightened public health surveillance. Nevertheless, surveillance for the Great American Solar Eclipse (August 2017) presented a challenge due to the 107 reported simultaneous statewide eclipse-watching events planned for the day of the eclipse (some with estimated attendance of greater than 30,000 people and most in rural or frontier regions of the state). Scientific literature is limited on mass gathering surveillance in the developed world, particularly in rural settings, so OPC and OPHD worked together to develop a list of health conditions of interest, including some that would warrant both an ED visit and a call to OPC (e.g., snake bites). Monitoring visits in both data sources in would allow for assessment of total burden on the healthcare system, especially in the case of snake bites where only specific bites require administration of anti-venom.

Objective:

Identify surveillance priorities for emergency department (ED) and Oregon Poison Center (OPC) data ahead of the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse gatherings in Oregon and create a suite of queries for use in the Health Intelligence Section of the Oregon Public Health Division (OPHD) Incident Management Team (IMT).

The Great American Solar Eclipse of 2017 provided a rare opportunity to view a complete solar eclipse on the American mainland. Much of Oregon was in the path of totality and forecasted to have clear skies. Ahead of the event, OPHD aggregated a list of 107 known gatherings in mostly rural areas across the state, some with estimated attendance of up to 30,000 attendees. Temporary food vendors and a range of sanitation solutions (including open latrines) were planned. International travelers were expected, along with large numbers of visitors traveling by car on the day of the eclipse. The potential for multiple simultaneous mass gatherings across the state prompted OPHD to activate an incident management team (IMT) and to create a Health Intelligence Section to design a mass gathering surveillance strategy. Statewide syndromic surveillance (Oregon ESSENCE) has been used to monitor previous mass gatherings (1) and captures statewide emergency department (ED), urgent care, Oregon Poison Center, and reportable disease data.

Objective:

Develop a public health surveillance plan for the Oregon Public Health Division (OPHD) in anticipation of the expected influx of visitors for the 2017 Great American Solar Eclipse.