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Syndromic Surveillance

Description

Rates of student absenteeism in schools have been mainly used to detect outbreaks in schools and prompt public health action to stop local transmission. A report by Kim Mogto et al.  stated that aggregated counts of school absenteeism (SAi) were correlated with PPFluA, but the sample may have been biased. The purpose of this study was to assess the correlation between aggregated rates of SAi and PPFluA for two cities, Calgary and Edmonton, in Alberta. In such situations, SAi could potentially be used as a proxy for PPFluA when there are not enough samples for stable laboratory estimates.

Objective

To assess the correlations between weekly rates of elementary school absenteeism due to illness (SAi) and percent positivity for influenza A from laboratory testing (PPFluA) when conducted at a city level from September to December over multiple years.

 

Submitted by uysz on
Description

When monitoring public health incidents using syndromic surveillance systems, Public Health England (PHE) uses the age of the presenting patient as a key indicator to further assess the severity, impact of the incident, and to provide intelligence on the likely cause. However the age distribution of cases is usually not considered until after unusual activity has been identified in the allages population data. We assessed whether monitoring specific age groups contemporaneously could improve the timeliness, specificity and sensitivity of public health surveillance.

Objective

To investigate whether aberration detection methods for syndromic surveillance would be more useful if data were stratified by age band.

 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Syndromic surveillance systems are used by Public Health England (PHE) to detect changes in health care activity that are indicative of potential threats to public health. By providing early warning and situational awareness, these systems play a key role in supporting infectious disease surveillance programmes, decision making and supporting public health interventions. In order to improve the identification of unusual activity, we created new baselines to model seasonally expected activity in the absence of outbreaks or other incidents. Although historical data could be used to model seasonality, changes due to public health interventions or working practices affected comparability. Specific examples of these changes included a major change in the way telehealth services were provided in England and the rotavirus vaccination programme introduced in July 2013 that changed the seasonality of gastrointestinal consultations. Therefore, we needed to incorporate these temporal changes in our baselines.

Objective

To improve the ability of syndromic surveillance systems to detect unusual events.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

The impact of poor air quality (AQ) on human health is a global issue, with periods of poor AQ known to occur in multiple locations, across different countries at, or around the same time. The Public Health England (PHE) Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance System (EDSSS) is a public health legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, monitoring anonymised daily attendance data in near real-time from a sentinel network of up to 38 EDs across England and Northern Ireland during 2014. The Organisation de la Surveillance COordonnée des URgences (OSCOUR®) is a similar ED system coordinated by Santé publique France and has been running in France since 2004, established following a major heatwave in 2003 to improve real-time public health surveillance capabilities. This truly national network included around 540 EDs in 2014.

Objective

To assess the impact on human health observed in association with periods of poor air quality which extended across international borders, affecting both London (UK) and Paris (France). In particular to quantify increased levels of emergency department (ED) attendances for asthma and wheeze/ difficulty breathing, and how different age groups were affected. Here, using ED syndromic surveillance from England and France, we aimed to identify and describe the acute impact of periods of particularly poor air quality during 2014 on human health in both London and Paris.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

France hosted 2016 UEFA European Football Championship between June 10 and July 10. In the particular context of several terrorist attacks occurring in France in 2015 [1], the French national public health agency « Santé publique France » (formerly French Institute for Public Health Surveillance-InVS) was mandated by the Ministry of Health to reinforce health population surveillance systems during the UEFA 2016 period. Six French regions and 10 main stadiums hosted 51 matches and several official and nonofficial dedicated Fan Zones were implemented in many cities across national territory. Three types of hazard have been identified in this context: outbreak of contagious infectious disease, environmental exposure and terrorist attack. The objectives of health surveillance of this major sporting event were the same as for an exceptional event including mass gathering [2] : 1/ timely detection of a health event (infectious cluster, environmental pollution, collective foodborne disease…) to investigate and timely implement counter measures (control and prevention), 2/ health impact assessment of an unexpected event. The French national syndromic surveillance system SurSaUD® was one of the main tools for timely health impact assessment in the context of this event.

Objective

To describe the surveillance indicators implemented for the health impact assessment of a potential health event occurring before, during or after the UEFA Euro 2016 football matches in order to timely implement control and prevention measures.

 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

In 2012, the Oregon Public Health Division (OPHD) took advantage of the opportunity created by Meaningful Use, a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Incentive Program, to implement statewide syndromic surveillance. The Oregon syndromic surveillance project, or Oregon ESSENCE, began accepting MUcompliant HL7 2.5.1 data in late 2013. Early onboarding efforts were labor-intensive and led to the creation of a testing queue. As interest in submitting syndromic data increased, Oregon ESSENCE streamlined the onboarding process by creating guidance for HL7 message construction, message testing and submitter business process details (collectively referred to as “onboarding documents”). Oregon ESSENCE also built a project management database to track MU testing statuses and data quality variations. With this system, Oregon ESSENCE collected, tested and approved all 32 eligible health systems (56 hospitals) for production-level submission by mid-2015. One health system (with four hospitals) continued to send non-MU compliant syndromic data for the duration of the project period.

Objective

To design a low budget process to enroll, track and approve syndromic submitters for ongoing submission of data to the Oregon Public Health Division. 

Submitted by Magou on
Description

SOS Médecins France (SOS Med) is the first private and permanent network of general practitioners providing emergency care in France. Besides Hospital emergency departments (HED), SOS Med is therefore a major source of data for detecting and measuring nearreal-time health phenomena. The emergency services provided by the SOS Med have been subject to important changes in the recent years. Their services are enriched by a medical consultation center together with extended working hours. Besides, the south of the region is markedly affected by a declining number of medical practitioners This study was conducted to analyze the regional population coverage of emergency healthcare data provided by HED and SOS Med to the French syndromic surveillance system (SurSaUD®) taking into account distance, health care offer, demographic factors and ecological deprivation factors.

Objective

To analyse population coverage of syndromic surveillance(SS) based on emergency care data by studying i)the attractiveness of respectively SOS Médecins (Emergency care general practitioners) and Hospital emergency departments in the Centre-Val de Loire region and ii) the contribution of ecological deprivation factors in emergency access to healthcare.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Social media messages are often short, informal, and ungrammatical. They frequently involve text, images, audio, or video, which makes the identification of useful information difficult. This complexity reduces the efficacy of standard information extraction techniques1. However, recent advances in NLP, especially methods tailored to social media2, have shown promise in improving real-time PH surveillance and emergency response3. Surveillance data derived from semantic analysis combined with traditional surveillance processes has potential to improve event detection and characterization. The CDC Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR), Division of Emergency Operations (DEO) and the Georgia Tech Research Institute have collaborated on the advancement of PH SA through development of new approaches in using semantic analysis for social media.

Objective

The objective of this analysis is to leverage recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) to develop new methods and system capabilities for processing social media (Twitter messages) for situational awareness (SA), syndromic surveillance (SS), and event-based surveillance (EBS). Specifically, we evaluated the use of human-in-the-loop semantic analysis to assist public health (PH) SA stakeholders in SS and EBS using massive amounts of publicly available social media data.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

The primary goal of syndromic surveillance is early recognition of disease trends, in order to identify and control infectious disease outbreaks, such as influenza. For surveillance of influenza-like illness (ILI), public health departments receive data from multiple sources with varying degrees of patient acuity, including outpatient clinics and emergency departments. However, the lack of standardization of these data sources may lead to varying baseline levels of ILI activity within a local area.

Objective

To examine the baseline influenza-like illness (ILI) rates in the emergency departments (ED) of a large academic medical center (AMC), community hospital (CH), and neighboring adult and pediatric primary care clinics.

Submitted by Magou on
Description

Syndromic surveillance systems are large and complex technology projects that increasingly require large investments of financial and political capital to be sustainable. What was once a minor surveillance tool in the mid-2000s has evolved into a program that is regarded as valuable to public health yet is increasingly difficult to maintain and operate for local health departments. The Houston Health Department installed a syndromic surveillance system (SyS) six years before Meaning Use became known to healthcare communities. The system chosen at the time was the Real-time Outbreak Disease Surveillance System (RODS) which, at the time and for its purpose, was a suitable platform for syndromic surveillance. During the past 13 years however, maintaining, operating, and growing a SyS by a local health department has become increasingly difficult. Inclusion in Meaningful Use elevated the importance and profile of syndromic surveillance such that network growth, transparency of operations, ease of data sharing, and cooperation with other state systems in Texas became program imperatives.

Objective

Describe and explain the transition of the syndromic surveillance program at the Houston Health Department (HHD) from being a locally managed and aging system to an ESSENCE system governed by a regional Consortium of public health agencies and stakeholders in the 13-county area of the southeast Texas

Submitted by Magou on