Development and Application of Syndromic Surveillance for Severe Weather Events Following Hurricane Sandy

Following Hurricane Superstorm Sandy, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) developed indicators to enhance syndromic surveillance for extreme weather events in EpiCenter, an online system that collects and analyzes real-time chief complaint emergency department (ED) data and classifies each visit by indicator or syndrome.

September 06, 2017

Weather Outlook: Cloudy with a Chance of...— Classification of Storm-Related ED Visits

Hurricane ‘Superstorm’ Sandy struck New Jersey on October 29, 2012, causing harm to the health of New Jersey residents and billions of dollars of damage to businesses, transportation, and infrastructure. Monitoring health outcomes for increased illness and injury due to a severe weather event is important in measuring the severity of conditions and the efficacy of state response, as well as in emergency response preparations for future severe weather events.

September 28, 2017

Challenges to Implementing Communicable Disease Surveillance in New York City Evacuation Shelters After Hurricane Sandy, November 2012

Hurricane Sandy hit New York City (NYC) on October 29, 2012. Before and after the storm, 73 temporary evacuation shelters were established. The total census of these shelters peaked at approximately 6,800 individuals. Concern about the spread of communicable diseases in shelters prompted the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to rapidly develop a surveillance system to report communicable diseases and emergency department transports from shelters. We describe the implementation of this system.

September 06, 2017

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning during Hurricane Sandy in Affected New York State Counties

CO poisoning is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in disaster and post-disaster situations, when widespread power outages most likely occur (1, 2). The NYSDOH Syndromic Surveillance System receives daily ED visit chief complaint data from 140 NYS (excluding New York City) hospitals. Daily power outage data are available from the NYS Department of Public Service (NYSDPS). These data can be used to estimate the risk of CO-EDs and provide useful information for public health situational awareness and emergency response management during disaster events.

October 09, 2017

Using Hospital ED Data to Identify Mental Illness Trends After Hurricane Sandy

EDCC data provides an opportunity for capturing the early mental health impact of disaster events at the community level, and to track their impact over time. However, while rapid mental health assessment can facilitate a better understanding of the acute post-disaster period and aid early identification of persons at long-term risk,1 determining how wide a net to effectively capture the critical range of mental health sub-categories has not yet been clearly defined.

December 20, 2017

Processing of Novel Electronic Health Data to Support Public Health Surveillance

Accurately gauging the health status of a population during an event of public health significance (e.g. hurricanes, H1N1 2009 pandemic) in support of emergency response and situation awareness efforts can be a challenge for established public health surveillance systems in terms of geographic and population coverage as well as the appropriateness of health indicators.

May 21, 2018

Emerging Disease Syndromic Surveillance for Hurricane Katrina Evacuees Seeking Shelter in Houston's Astrodome and Reliant Park Complex

Transmission of infectious diseases became an immediate public health concern when approximately 27,000 New Orleans-area residents evacuated to Houston's Astrodome and Reliant Park Complex following Hurricane Katrina. This article presents a surveillance system that was rapidly developed and implemented for daily tracking of various symptoms in the evacuee population in the Astrodome “megashelter.” This system successfully confirmed an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis and became a critical tool in monitoring the course of this outbreak.

Objective

September 06, 2017

Disaster Surveillance Revisited: Passive, Active and Electronic Syndromic Surveillance during Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, LA - 2005

Surveillance strategies following major natural disasters have varied widely with respect to methods used to collect and analyze data. Following Hurricane Katrina, public health concerns included infectious disease outbreaks, injuries, mental health and exacerbation of preexisting chronic conditions resulting from unprecedented population displacement and disruption of public health services and health-care infrastructure.

 

Objective

July 30, 2018

Services Oriented Architectures and Just in Time Deployment of Ad-Hoc Health Surveillance Systems: Lessons from Katrina Relief Efforts

Timely outbreak detection, and monitoring of morbidity and mortality among Katrina evacuees, and needs assessment for better planning and response were urgent information intensive priorities during Katrina relief efforts at Houston, and called for immediate deployment of a real-time surveillance and needs assessment system ad hoc, in order to collect and analyze relevant data at the scene. Initial requirement analysis revealed the following capabilities as essential to sustain effective response within the shelters:

July 30, 2018

Disease Surveillance among Katrina Evacuees in Shelters - Use of a Web-Based Surveillance System during an Emergency Response

On Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. Outside of the affected areas of TX, LA, MS, and AL, GA received the largest number of these evacuees, approximately 125,000. By August 30, 2005, GA began receiving a total of approximately 1,300 NDMS patients from flights arriving at Dobbins Air Force Base. Within days, Georgia established 13 shelters for evacuees. Crowded shelters can increase the risk for communicable diseases. In addition, many evacuees left behind needed medications, thus increasing the risk for chronic disease exacerbations.

 

July 30, 2018

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