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Public Health

Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are a serious threat to global public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified more than 1100 epidemic events worldwide in the last 5 years alone. Recently, the emergence of the novel 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus and the SARS coronavirus has demonstrated how rapidly pathogens can spread worldwide. This infectious disease threat, combined with a concern over man-made biological or chemical events, spurred WHO to update their International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005. The new 2005 IHR, a legally binding instrument for all 194 WHO member countries, significantly expanded the scope of reportable conditions, and are intended to help prevent and respond to global public health threats. SAGES aims to improve local public health surveillance and IHR compliance, with particular emphasis on resource-limited settings.

Objective

This paper describes the development of the Suite for Automated Global bioSurveillance (SAGES), a collection of freely available software tools intended to enhance electronic disease surveillance in resource-limited settings around the world.

Referenced File
Submitted by Magou on

Standard vocabulary facilitates the routing and filtering of laboratory data to various public health programs. In 2008, Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) developed 67 Technical Implementation Guides (TIGs) that accompany each condition and contain standard codes for NNC reporting. Those TIGs were reviewed by a public health subject matter expert panel (SMEP), in May 2010, consisting of members of the CDC CSTE Laboratory and PHIN Vocabulary and Messaging Communities of Practice Program, and representatives from the Regenstrief Institute and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization.

Objective

Electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) has a key role in public health case reporting and case notification. This paper will discuss the current status, problems, and solutions in a vocabulary support of nationally notifiable conditions (NNC) reporting.

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Submitted by Magou on

Construction of data-sharing network for public health is one of the national scientific data-sharing projects, based on the data resource that distributed at China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), universities, research institutes, and scientists, as well as the data from research projects were integrated.

Objective

The objective of this study is to describe public health datasharing policy, and informatics initiatives at China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC).

Referenced File
Submitted by Magou on

Political discourse surrounding matters of public health is exigent because human life is at stake this is unquestionably the case with respect to widespread opioid addiction. While intravenous drug use itself is described as a health concern, the spread of diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV through the sharing of needles is a disease surveillance emergency. This research centers on municipal-level decision making in the community of greater Lafayette, Indiana. Here, the mayors of sister cities West Lafayette and Lafayette hold different positions regarding a clean needle exchange program operated by the county health department.

Objective: This abstract proposes a poster presentation aimed at explaining rhetorical framing as a technique for articulating and identifying cases in healthchare policy.

Submitted by elamb on

Increasingly public health decision-makers are using syndromic surveillance for real-time reassurance and situational awareness in addition to early warning1. Decision-makers using intelligence, including syndromic data, need to understand what the systems are capable of detecting, what they cannot detect and specifically how much reassurance should be inferred when syndromic systems report nothing detected. In this study we quantify the detection capabilities of syndromic surveillance systems used by Public Health England (PHE). The key measures for detection capabilities are specificity and sensitivity (although timeliness is also very important for surveillance systems)2. However, measuring the specificity and sensitivity of syndromic surveillance systems is not straight forward. Firstly, syndromic systems are usually multi-purpose and may be better at identifying certain types of public health threat than others. Secondly, whilst it is easy to quantify statistical aberration detection algorithms, surveillance systems involve other stages, including data collection and human decision-making, which also affect detection capabilities. Here, we have taken a systems thinking approach to understand potential barriers to detection, and summarize what we know about detection capabilities of syndromic surveillance systems in England.

Objective: To communicate the detection capabilities of syndromic surveillance systems to public health decision makers.

Submitted by elamb on

Arboviral infections have become a significant public health problem with the emergence and re-emergence of arboviral diseases worldwide in recent decades. Given the increasing number of cases, geographic spread, but also health, social and economic impact of arboviral outbreaks, estimating their true burden represents a crucial issue but remains a difficult task. In French Guiana, the epidemiology of arboviral diseases has been marked by the occurrence several major dengue fever (DENV) outbreaks over the past few decades, recent emergences of Chikungunya (CHKV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) and the circulation of Mayaro virus (MAYV).

Objective: To assess the level of circulation of DENV, CHIKV, ZIKV, MAYV in French Guiana.

Submitted by elamb on

An essential theme of the US Federal Health Information Technology Strategic Plan is interoperability and the ability to effectively exchange information using specific data and technical standards.1 In 2005, in an effort to accelerate the development of a national laboratory standards-based electronic data-sharing network, APHL and CDC collaborated to launch PHLIP.2 The goals of PHLIP include, but are not limited to, improving the quality of data exchanged, piloting sustainable architecture for laboratory data exchange, sending and receiving HL7 test results from states to CDC programs (v2.3.1), increasing the use of Route-not-Read hubs for regional data exchange, and expanding these efforts beyond National Notifiable Diseases (NNDs). In an effort to achieve these goals, APHL solicited input directly from the PHL community to understand what assistance was necessary to achieve success with ELSM; in this case, Influenza as a prototype. After receiving feedback from PHLs responsible for reporting NNDs, the concept of technical assistance teams was formulated. In early 2010, APHL initiated an effort to send out the PATs to implement the ELSM message for Influenza in as many PHLs as possible by December 2010.

Objective

This paper describes the Public Health Laboratory Interoperability Project (PHLIP) assistance team (PAT) approach and the collaborative efforts between the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to achieve electronic laboratory surveillance messaging (ELSM) for Influenza. The knowledge transfer and experience gained by state public health laboratories (PHLs) participating in PHLIP could serve as an interoperability model for other data messaging and surveillance initiatives.

Referenced File
Submitted by Magou on

Utah has a centralized State Health Department and 12 Local Health Departments situated throughout the state. Coordination of outbreaks or events that crosses jurisdictions has been historically difficult. Utah has not had a functional NEDSS-compliant database until 2009 and still does not have an Outbreak Management System (OMS). A survey was sent to Local Health Departments to assess their perception of need for real-time knowledge of current outbreak/events, with the majority indicating that current processes were inadequate.

Objective

The aim of this project was to create a secured web-based application that would run within the PH Access communication framework at the Utah Department of Health. This applicationFEpi Issue TrackerFwould provide State and Local Health Departments with an environment that can be used to monitor actions during an event. We created a tracking system that functions as a combination dashboard/ notification system to permit timely and effective communication of epidemiology events. This tracking system, Epi Issue Tracker, is used by all 12 Local Health Departments and the State Department of Health to share information across the state. There have been 830 issues/outbreaks entered into Epi Issue Tracker since January 2009, with 647 updates posted for those issues/outbreaks.

Referenced File
Submitted by Magou on

The recent focus on the 'One Medicine' concept has resulted in an increased awareness that the control of diseases in animal populations, whether zoonotic or not, can be of great public health importance. Zoonotic and foodborne diseases represent an immediate threat to the health of human populations, while rapid spreading diseases in animals can compromise the food-supply and the economy of a country or region. On the other hand, animal populations can serve as sentinels, and continued surveillance can prevent the emergence and/or rapid spread of pathogens potentially harmful to humans. However, awareness of the activities developed in the field of animal health is still low among public health workers. To date, the cooperation between public health and animal health epidemiologists has mainly involved the control of outbreaks of foodborne diseases. Greater cooperation between the two fields, however, could improve prevention and reduce the number of such outbreaks.

Objective

To discuss opportunities to improve the synergy between animal and public health and increase awareness, among public health workers, of the concept of animal health.

Submitted by elamb on

In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia estimated that approximately 1 million people in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS, and that approximately 25% these were undiagnosed and unaware of their HIV infection. For many such patients the emergency department may be the only part of the health care system that is utilized. In 2006, the CDC revised their recommendations for HIV testing in a variety of care settings including the emergency department (ED). Early identification and treatment improves survival for patients with HIV. Earlier testing programs including those provided in the ED will lead earlier detection and further reduction in the transmission of HIV in the United States. (1,2,3) The analysis was focused on ED providersÕ knowledge and attitudes towards routine HIV testing, perceived barriers to HIV testing.

Objective:

To evaluate ED staff attitudes and potential barriers towards ED based POC HIV testing in an urban academic ED prior to implementing an ED based POC HIV test.

Submitted by elamb on
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