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Florida

The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) previously monitored Florida Poison Information Center (FPICN) data for timely detection of increases in carbon monoxide (CO) exposures before, during, and after hurricanes. Recent analyses have noted that CO poisonings have also increased with generator use and improper heating of homes during cold winter months in Florida. Similarly, increases in CO poisoning cases related to motor vehicles have been observed during summer months. CO is an odorless, colorless, poisonous gas causing sudden illness and death, if present in sufficient concentration in ambient air. The most common signs and symptoms include headache, nausea, lethargy/fatigue, weakness, abdominal discomfort/pain, confusion, and dizziness. 

Objective

This presentation summarizes Florida’s experience in identifying CO poisoning clusters using ESSENCE-based syndromic surveillance.

Referenced File
Submitted by uysz on

On 12 January 2010 at 1652 hours local time, an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and created enormous devastation. Florida, as the state closest to Haiti, became an initial focal point for assisting the federal repatriation and humanitarian parolee efforts. Florida supported shipments of personnel and relief supplies into Haiti, and served as the point of entry for repatriated U.S. citizens and those evacuated from Haiti for medical care. As of 9 February 2010, there were 22,500 arrivals in Florida from Haiti related to repatriation and medical humanitarian missions. These patients primarily arrived in Miami, Tampa and Orlando areas. Approximately 650 people arrived in Florida during this period as medical evacuees, and were transported to and often directly admitted to hospitals for treatment of severe or complicated injuries. Some of these patients also generated emergency department (ED) visits on arrival.

Objective

To describe the public health surveillance efforts designed to measure syndromic and disease-specific conditions in patients who were in Haiti during or after the earthquake, and evacuated to Florida.

Referenced File
Submitted by uysz on

Reducing HIV incidence requires a precision public health approach encompassing prevention campaigns, targeted interventions, and next-generation surveillance through multimodal instruments, including sequencing. Molecular epidemiology methods (phylogenetics and phylodynamics) have recently gained traction for use in identifying and tracking epidemic transmission clusters, as well as reconstructing the demographic history of viral pathogen populations. However, such methods are not equipped to identify both transmission clusters and their corresponding dynamics in real time, and transmission clusters are assumed to be unrealistically static over the course of the epidemic. We will focus on the ongoing HIV epidemic in Florida, which has one of the highest HIV incidence rates in the United States. Although key HIV transmission risk groups have been identified in Florida through classical epidemiology surveillance methods, there remains a critical need for detection and tracking of expanding transmission clusters in near-real time.

Objective: We aim to 1) develop and implement a novel theoretical and technical framework able to dynamically model HIV transmission clusters in near-real time; 2) validate the model with real data; and 3) host focus groups with governmental stakeholders to identify optimal strategies for precision public health interventions.

Submitted by elamb on
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