Epidemiology

Syndromic surveillance is an investigational approach used to monitor trends of illness in communities. It relies on pre-diagnostic health data rather than laboratory-confirmed clinical diagnoses. Its primary purpose is to detect disease outbreaks, incidents and unusual public health events earlier than possible with traditional public health surveillance methods.

Objective

To describe how epidemiological principles are utilized to distinguish a real alert from statistically significant alerts in order to monitor and create daily reports in the Miami-Dade County Health Department using Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community Based Epidemics. 

Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Texas coast on August 25th, 2017 as a Category 4 storm. It is estimated that the ensuing rainfall caused record flooding of at least 18 inches in 70% of Harris County. Over 30,000 residents were displaced and 50 deaths occurred due to the devastation. At least 53 temporary refuge shelters opened in various parts of Harris County to accommodate displaced residents. On the evening of August 29th, Harris County and community partners set up a 10,000 bed mega-shelter at NRG Center, in efforts to centralize refuge efforts. Harris County Public Health (HCPH) was responsible for round-the-clock surveillance to monitor resident health status and prevent communicable disease outbreaks within the mega-shelter. This was accomplished through direct and indirect resident health assessments, along with coordinated prevention and disease control efforts. Despite HCPH’s 20-day active response, and identification of two relatively small but potentially worrisome communicable disease outbreaks, no large-scale disease outbreaks occurred within the NRG Center mega-shelter.

Objective:

1) Describe HCPH’s disease surveillance and prevention activities within the NRG Center mega-shelter;

2) Present surveillance findings with an emphasis on sharing tools that were developed and may be utilized for future disaster response efforts;

3) Discuss successes achieved, challenges encountered, and lessons learned from this emergency response.

In the early morning of Friday January 20, 2017, Toronto Public Health (TPH) was notified of several reports of acute vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain/cramps among students living in residence at a post-secondary institution in Toronto, Canada. A public health investigation was initiated and it was quickly determined that a large number of students and visitors to the campus were affected. Following considerable media coverage, TPH began receiving an overwhelmingly high volume of reports from ill individuals who lived, visited, or worked at the college campus and had experienced gastrointestinal illness.

Objective:

To describe the use of an online survey tool to rapidly collect data from a large community outbreak of enteric illness in Toronto, Canada.

Falls are a leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injury in NC. As the size of the older adult population is predicted to increase over the next few decades, it is likely that the incidence of falls-related morbidity and mortality will increase in tandem. In order to address this public health emergency, the Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB) of the NC Division of Public Health has partnered with the Carolina Center for Health Informatics (CCHI) in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to perform falls surveillance activities. This abstract describes some of the specific research and surveillance activities currently ongoing in NC.

Objective:

To describe how a successful partnership between state public health and a university organization has used epidemiologic data, such as mortality, hospital discharge, and emergency department (ED) visit data, to inform falls prevention activities in North Carolina (NC).

Brucellosis, endemic in Armenia, is recognized as a significant public health challenge with a major economic burden. To address the regional threat of brucellosis for both animal health and public health, the œOne Health Surveillance of Brucellosis in Armenia” was initiated in December 2016. The project aims to develop scientifically sound strategies and policies for sustainable control of the disease.

Objective:

To understand the disease burden, we studied the epidemiological and clinical characteristics and associated costs for brucellosis patients hospitalized in Nork hospital in 2016.

Erysipeloid is a zoonotic bacterial infection transmitted to humans from animals. Symptoms include inflamed joints and skin; there is also a generalized type of the infection in which bacteria spread through the lymphatic and blood vessels, leading to the emergence of widespread skin lesions and the formation of secondary foci of infection in internal organs. Morbidity has no age or gender specifics; there is summer and autumn seasonality. The agent of the infection - Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae can be found in many domestic and wild animals. Wild rodents and ectoparasites play an essential role in spreading the disease and serve as a source of infection contaminating the environment.

Objective:

The goal of this study was to characterize the epidmiological, geographic, and historical characteristics of erysipeloid outbreaks in the Republic of Armenia.

Plague was first identified in Armenia in 1958 when Y. pestis was isolated and cultured from the flea species Ct. teres collected from the burrows of common voles in the northwestern part of the country. In the process of digitalizing archived data, a statistical and spatial analysis of the species composition of mammals and parasites involved in the epizootic process of plague between 1958 and 2016 was performed.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to determine the species composition of mammals and parasites involved in the epizootic process of plague in Armenia and their geographic distribution.