Skip to main content

Epidemiology

Description

Whole-genome sequencing of disease-causing organisms provides an unabridged examination of the genetic content of individual pathogen isolates, enabling public health laboratories to benefit from comparative analyses of total genetic content. Combining this information with sample metadata such as temporal, geospatial, morbidity, and mortality can greatly increase the efficacy of genomics analysis. However, with the vast amount of data generated by such techniques, meaningful, rapid, and accurate analysis that interprets and correlates nucleotide polymorphisms for public health practice presents many challenges. To this end we have created a modular genomics analysis toolkit that can easily integrate diverse data streams and couple analysis with an array of visualization platforms.

Objective

To develop a modular approach to infectious disease genomic analysis that can easily integrate with public health analytics systems. Using dynamic approaches to genomic sequence analysis, relevant whole genome data can be quickly and accurately visualized and correlated, using a minimum of computational resources. We propose to develop visualization modules that integrate disparate data sources including integrate geospatial location metadata with associated epidemiological factors to enable faster outbreak identification and enhance surveillance.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

Obesity and related chronic diseases cost Canadians several billion dollars annually. Dietary intake, and in particular consumption of carbonated sweetened drinks (soda), has a strong effect on the incidence of obesity and other illness. Marketing research suggests that in-store promotion, and more specifically price discounting, has a strong effect on the purchase of energy-dense products such as soda. Attempts by public health authorities to monitor price discounts are currently limited by a lack of data and methods. Although rarely used in public health surveillance, electronic retail sales data collected around the world by marketing companies such as the Nielsen Corporation have an immense potential to measure dietary choices at high geographical resolution. These scanned sales data are recorded in real-time and they include a detailed product description, price, purchased quantity, store location, and product-specific advertising activities.

Objective

To assess the influence of in-store price discounts on soda purchasing by neighborhood socio-economic status in Montreal, Canada using digital grocery store-level sales data.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

Communities and sections that are consistently underreporting both illness and death pose a significant risk to surveillance and their efficacy is dependent upon the reporting of community structures such as government structures (primary health units (PHUs), schools), EVD response structures (contact tracers, community events based surveillance (CEBS), social mobilization), and traditional structures (chiefs, traditional healers, village task forces, religious institutions). All structures are required to report to the District Ebola Response Center (DERC) as depicted in Figure 1. Frequent and protocolized information sharing is central to the reporting efficacy within this structure to ensure early capture of all EVD-related incidents.

Objective

Systematically assess and strengthen the capacity of communities and sections in Port Loko District, Sierra Leone to detect significant events related to the reporting of Ebola virus disease (EVD) such as sick persons, secret burials and deaths. The components of the enhanced surveillance system will be described.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

As the lead for coordinating domestic incident management across all Federal departments and agencies, Department of Homeland Security is responsible for identifying emergency response resources. The 2014 Ebola – Zaire outbreak in West Africa that became a Public Health Emergency of International Concern highlighted the need to understand the current and potential availability of diagnostic assays for a number of viral hemorrhagic fevers that may require similar response actions. A concatenated list of publically reported potential viral hemorrhagic fever diagnostic assays was therefore compiled. Etiologic agents in the families of Arena-, Bunya-, Filo-, and Flaviviridae were included in the analysis. This list identifies assays in various stages of development that could be submitted, at some point, to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) should such a need arise.

Objective

Provide a succinct review of potential developmental and commercial viral hemorrhagic fever diagnostic assays published in peer-reviewed literature and open-source platforms.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

Anthrax is an acute especially dangerous infectious disease of animals and humans. Bacillus anthracis is a potential bioterrorism tool. In Ukraine, there are favorable natural conditions for the spread of anthrax. There are 13.5 thousand of constantly anthrax-troubled points. Anthrax epidemic situation in Ukraine could be characterized as unstable. Because of the continuing reform of Ukrainian human health entities, the State Sanitary Epidemiological Service (SSES) has lost its control functions and is remaining in an uncertain state, which increases possible risks.

Submitted by uysz on

Disaster epidemiology (i.e., applied epidemiology in disaster settings) presents a source of reliable and actionable information for decision-makers and stakeholders in the disaster management cycle. However, epidemiological methods have yet to be routinely integrated into disaster response and fully communicated to response leaders.

Submitted by uysz on
Description

Flu Near You allows individuals to volunteer to be a sentinel node of the syndromic surveillance (SyS) network. The platform has the potential to provide insight into the spread of influenza-like illness (ILI). CDC’s ILINet is the gold standard for tracking ILI at the national level, but does not track into the local level. Local health departments (LHD) frequently express a need for granular data specific to their jurisdictions. FNY attempts to meet this need by collecting and sharing data at the zip code level. Knowing how well FNY data correlates to ILINet data will give local health departments an important tool to communicate the arrival of influenza to their jurisdiction. However, there is significant skepticism at the quality of FNY data as compared to validated datasets.

Objective

Our objective is to provide evidence for the data quality of Flu Near You (FNY) by evaluating the national and Houston datasets against CDC ILI data.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on
Description

The basic reproduction number represents the number of secondary infections expected to be caused by an infectious individual introduced into an entirely susceptible population. It is a fundamental measure used to characterize infectious disease outbreaks and is essential in developing mathematical models to determine appropriate interventions. Much work has been done to investigate methods for estimating the basic reproduction number during the early stages of infectious disease outbreaks. However, these methods often require data that may not be readily available at the beginning of an outbreak. An approach developed by Becker has been widely used to estimate the basic reproduction number using only the final case count and size of the at-risk population. A modification to this approach is proposed that allows estimates to be obtained earlier in an outbreak using only the current case count, number currently ill, and the size of the at-risk population.

Objective

To present a modification to an established approach to estimating the basic reproduction number to allow estimates to be obtained at any point during an outbreak using only the current case count, number currently ill, and the size of the at-risk population.

Submitted by teresa.hamby@d… on