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Extreme Weather

On 12/14/06, a windstorm in western Washington caused 4 million residents to lose power; within 24 hours, a surge in patients presented to emergency departments (EDs) with carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. As previously described, records of all patients presenting to King County EDs with CO poisoning between 12/15/06 to 12/24/06 (n=279) were abstracted, of which 249 met the case definition and eligibility requirements. We attempted to identify each of the 249 confirmed cases of CO poisoning in our syndromic ED data set by comparing the hospital name, date, time, age, sex, zip code, chief complaint, and diagnoses across the two data sets. We designated each record as an exact match, likely match, possible match, or unmatched on the basis of the available fields.

 

Objective

We evaluated ED and emergency medical services data for describing an outbreak of CO poisoning following a windstorm, and determined whether loss of power was followed by an increase in other health conditions.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

Recent extreme weather events have caused serious health and social problems across Europe. During the summer heat waves of 2003 across Europe, France recorded an excess of over 14,000 deaths contributed to heat-related causes. Other countries such as Italy and Portugal experienced over 3,000 and over 2,000 excess deaths respectively. The extreme rises in mortality were initially unobserved by traditional public health surveillance techniques; morbidity related to heat-related exposures also went initially unnoticed by public health authorities.

Real-time monitoring of clinical data has been proposed as one method of surveillance that may be used to alert public health authorities during extreme weather conditions when heat-related morbidity may be higher than expected. Previous studies have shown increased ambulance calls during heat alert conditions in Canada. These potential data sources, including electronic medical records for emergency department visits, are already in existence in many of the countires affected by the heat waves of 2003. Syndromic surveillance methods such as those described by Mandl et al could be applied to these data to help detect when heat-related morbidity and possibly heat-related mortality begins to rise.

 

Objective

The specific objectives of the study are to evaluate the usefulness of syndromic surveillance data to monitor heat-related morbidity and mortality during extreme weather conditions. During such conditions, real time data monitoring could potentially help drive interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality.

Referenced File
Submitted by elamb on

This is a cluster of syndromes created to populate an extreme weather myESSENCE tab. The intent was to increase repeatability of our weather surveillance and have something where a user can use the "Change Region" option to select whatever county, or counties, experienced storm activity. This is still a major work-in progress.

All of this as done in NSSP ESSENCE on Emergency Room data. Fields are specified by each syndrome definition.

Submitted by ZSteinKS on

On August 28, 2011 Tropical Storm Irene made landfall in Connecticut. On October 29, 2011 Connecticut was impacted by Winter Storm Alfred. Both of these storms included high winds and heavy precipitation which resulted in prolonged power outages, disruption of public drinking water systems, property damage, and widespread debris throughout the state. The Hospital Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance (HEDSS) System was utilized to provide real-time situational awareness during the response and recovery phases of both storm events.

 

Objective

To characterize the utility of the Connecticut HEDSS system for real-time situational awareness during two weather-related emergencies.

Submitted by hparton on

In late summer 2017, the United States endured two severe hurricanes back to back. On August 25, 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas and southwest Louisiana, dumping more than 19 trillion gallons of rain. On September 10, 2017, 20 days later, Hurricane Irma landed in Florida, leading residents across the Florida peninsula to evacuate inland and out of the path of the storm. Although Tennessee was far from the eye of the storms, state health officials knew residents from both states could choose to shelter in Tennessee.

Submitted by elamb on

This syndrome was created to help capture tree-related injuries during severe weather events. Extreme weather events require extensive tree removal and disposal, activities associated with severe injury risks among workers and residents.

Syndromic Surveillance System – EpiCenter

Data Source – Emergency Department visits

Fields Used – Chief complaint

Submitted by marijab on
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