ISDS Conference

In early May of 2013, two chemical spills occurred within high schools in Atlantic county. These incidents, occurring within a week of each other, highlighted the need to strengthen statewide syndromic surveillance of illnesses caused by such exposures. In response to these spills, a new 'chemical exposure' classifier was created in EpiCenter, New JerseyÕs syndromic surveillance system, to track future events by monitoring registration chief complaint data taken from emergency department visits. The primary objective behind creation of the new classifier is to provide local epidemiologists with prompt notification once EpiCenter detects an abnormal numbers of chemical exposure cases.

Objective

To describe the development of a new chemical exposure classifier in New Jersey's syndromic surveillance system (EpiCenter).

Rickettsiae are an important arthropod-borne pathogens widely distributed throughout the world that infects humans causing various types of clinical diseases. The clinical features of rickettsial diseases can often overlap with other tick-borne diseases, particularly with borrelioses. These organisms can share the same transmitting vector; co-infection in a single vector is possible, leading to further complication of the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. Preliminary study showed a relatively high infection rate for spotted fever group Rickettsiae among ticks in Georgia. The prevalence of Borrelia in ticks has not been studied so far.

Objective

The primary goal of this study was to assess the prevalence of Rickettsia and Borellia in ticks collected from different regions of Georgia.

The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) community comprises a large pool of global expertise. Essential to the ISDS mission of advancing the science and practice of disease surveillance is understanding and setting priorities for research and best practices in public health monitoring. To this end, an ISDS workgroup developed an online survey to identify and prioritize the technical and policy issues of the ISDS community. Through analysis, the Survey will identify respondents' perceptions of opportunities in the area of analytical methodologies.

Objective

The objective of the '2013 Biosurveillance Technical Opportunity Prioritization Survey' (Survey) is to gather input from the ISDS community on the current landscape and prioritization of data sources and analytical issues in the field of biosurveillance.

The field of syndromic surveillance has received increased attention over the past decade as an expansion of traditional disease detection methods. There is, however, little or no consensus, regarding a standard definition encompassing the full scope of the term 'syndromic surveillance'. Several researchers have proposed at least 36 alternative names to differentiate various forms of syndromic surveillance but none has taken hold (including early warning, health indicator surveillance, enhanced surveillance, among others). Katz et al presented a redefining of syndromic surveillance as two overarching categories of 'syndrome based'“ versus 'syndrome non-specific'“ surveillance1. In addition, the Meaningful Use Stage 2 standard for syndromic surveillance includes both pre-diagnostic and diagnostic data elements, further broadening the scope of this surveillance method.

Objective

To provide a forum for stakeholders from various sectors of syndromic surveillance research and practice to discuss and establish a more accurate and comprehensive yet succinct definition of syndromic surveillance, based on lessons learned and innovations in public health surveillance practice.

Despite the global emergence of syndromic surveillance systems and theories in recent years, the practical performance of this surveillance method under real circumstances had been rarely evaluated, especially in resource-limited areas. Since April 2012, a syndromic surveillance system named 'ISSC' has been established among health care facilities, pharmacies and primary schools in two rural counties (County A & B) of Jiangxi Province, China.

Objective

Our aim was to explore the practical performance of ISSC system through investigating the characteristics and verifying results of alert signals raised during real-time surveillance periods.

In November of 2011, the local Public Health unit responsible for the Edmonton area (population 1.2mil) was alerted to an individual meeting the case definition for measles in the ED. A key part of the management strategy was to identify contacts to the index case, perform a risk assessment and, if applicable, inform them of the risk. Given the transmission characteristics, the risk for this group was defined as those present within the geographic area/environment of the index case within a specified time period. Public Health utilized the established manual lookup of hospital records and piloted an automated data query through the syndromic surveillance system, ARTSSN. This served as opportunity to validate the ability to generate a contact list, based on risk geography and time, of the ARTSSN system, and to compare the timeliness of each result.

Objective

Following a clinical case of measles presenting to an urban emergency department (ED), the local health authority sought to identify all patients that might be at risk for disease. This list of contacts was generated through a manual search of hospital records and through a piloted automated data query of the health authority's syndromic surveillance system, Alberta Real Time Syndromic Surveillance Net (ARTSSN). The purpose of this pilot study was to: 1) compare the completeness of the two lookup methods and, 2) describe the time requirements needed for each method.

Many studies have shown relationships between race/ethnicity and some birth defects. For example, white teenagers have higher rates of gastroschisis than African-American teenagers 1 , and transposition of great arteries is more prevalent in white than non-white children 2 .The Louisiana Birth Defects Monitoring Network (LBDMN) is a population-based surveillance system created in 2005. LBDMN actively collects information from multiple sources to track babies born with birth defects up to three years old in the state. Racial disparity in birth defects has never been evaluated using birth defects surveillance data in Louisiana. Findings from this study are expected to help LBDMN and Louisiana Children and Youth with Special Health Needs Program better understand variations in the prevalence of some birth defects among certain racial/ethnic groups in the state.

Objective

This study aimed to evaluate relationships between race/ethnicity and selected major birth defects using 2006-2008 Louisiana birth defects surveillance data.

Located along the Gulf Coast, Louisiana is home to strong traditional industries, such as agriculture, petrochemicals and energy, and is also home to the largest single port in the United States (Louisiana Department of Economic Development, 2009). All of these industries use hazardous materials as part of their standard operating procedure. No matter how safe an industry is, accidents do happen, and when working with hazardous materials, these accidents can be disastrous. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH) has recently developed and implemented emergency response guidelines for handling hazardous chemical emergencies. These guidelines were developed as an expansion of a collaborative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC / ATSDR). The cooperative agreement, known as the National Toxic Substance Incidents Program (NTSIP) collects and combines information from many resources to protect people from harm caused by spills and leaks of toxic substances and is modeled partially after CDC / ATSDRÕs Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) Program (1990-2009). Objective: In order for there to be immediate public health involvement during hazardous chemical emergencies, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH) has recently developed and implemented emergency response guidelines for handling hazardous chemical emergencies.

The incidence of cryptococcosis is increasing with the global emergence of AIDS and this now represents a major life-threatening fungal infection in HIV-AIDS patients (1). Cryptococcal meningitis is a leading cause of death in AIDS patients and contributes substantially to the high early mortality in antiretroviral treatment (ART) programs in low-resource settings (1). Relatively high prevalence of cryptococcal infection has been reported in low-resource country like Nigeria (2). In more affluent countries, the incidence of HIV-associated cryptococcosis has decreased dramatically (3). Cryptococcal infections in HIV/AIDS patients contribute substantially to the high early mortality in antiretroviral treatment (ART) programs in low-resource countries (1).

Objective

Screening of a targeted group of HIV patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) for early detection of cryptococcal infection.

Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is mentioned in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of Priority Communicable Disease Surveillance (PCDS) is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase our knowledge to what factors might contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.

Objective

Surveillance of priority communicable diseases started with a view to build up an early warning system for certain important public health important diseases in Bangladesh, namely: (1) Diarrheal disease (acute watery diarrhea and bloody dysentery); (2) Malaria; (3) Kala-azar; (4) Tuberculosis; (5) Leprosy; (6) Encephalitis; (7) Unknown diseases of public health concern.