Injury Surveillance

In Sri Lanka, a major drawback in injury prevention is the lack of complete, accurate and timely data. To fulfill this data need, in 2006, Sri Lanka's Trauma Secretariat piloted an Injury Surveillance System (ISS) in four hospitals. This comprised of two parts: a paper-based data collection tool (Trauma Surveillance Record or TSR) and its corresponding software application. TSR recorded ICD-10 Chapter XIX codes related to the diagnoses of injuries, but did not record the Chapter XX codes pertaining to external causes of morbidity which provide essential knowledge for injury prevention. The software application was built using proprietary technologies that could lead to increased costs and associated dependencies with vendors. The system was unable to comply with the changing data needs of the Ministry of Health (MoH) without a major retooling. Consequently, in 2011, the MoH made changes in the TSR, but the software application was unable to handle those changes. The ISS was evaluated by three independent teams which recommended discontinuing its use and suggested the development of a new system.

Objective

Designing, developing and piloting a web-based Injury Surveillance System for Sri Lanka.

In 2005, three hurricanes made landfall in Florida, with Hurricane Wilma having the most severe impact on Miami-Dade County. Syndromic surveillance is typically used to detect bioterrorism or natural disease outbreaks before specific diagnoses are made. After Wilma, however, the Miami-Dade County Health Department assessed the utility of syndromic data for surveillance of hurricane-related injuries.

Objective

To determine the proportion of injuries in Miami-Dade County that could be related to the impact of Hurricane Wilma, which made landfall in Florida on October 25, 2005.

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.

Objective

To assess public health needs among sheltered evacuees, the GA Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health recommended daily surveillance.

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

This paper describes the public health surveillance response to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and surrounding Parishes; particularly illustrating the methods, results, and lessons learned for implementing passive, active and electronic syndromic surveillance systems during a major disaster.