The use of syndromic surveillance in Tulsa County began as an attempt to identify symptoms associated with Category A agents, namely Anthrax. The underlying premise for adopting the system was the hope that an astute clinician, upon observing clusters of cases exhibiting certain symptoms, would rapidly notify the local health department so that an epidemiological investigation could be initiated. The system is also designed to send spatial and temporal alerts when cases of pre-defined syndromes are observed. Since 2002, when the system was first implemented, Tulsa Health Department has looked for other ways to integrate syndromic surveillance into its daily operations, and to expand its focus from an exclusive bioterrorism tool, to one that is broader in scope. One such way has been to utilize the system to identify other syndromes and conditions. Collected emergency data has therefore, been used to identify occurrences of animal bites, mental conditions etc. This paper addresses the use of syndromic surveillance for the identification of heat-related illnesses during the hot Oklahoma summer months.
Objective
This paper describes the application of syndromic surveillance methodologies to identify nonbioterrorism syndromes particularly, the incidence of heat-related syndromes during the hot Oklahoma summer months.