Problem Summary

Given the background of climate change, there is an increasing demand for public health to characterize weather-related illness. The public health impact of extreme heat or cold events can be characterized from Emergency Department syndromic surveillance data to monitor conditions that aren’t routinely captured by other surveillance methods. However, case detection is limited to the selected terminology in the syndrome definition. A statistical approach to monitor all-cause, excess morbidity during a weather event and estimate the risk attributed to specific conditions would allow public health to: 1) characterize the broad impact of these events more appropriately; and 2) create targeted interventions to reduce overall burden in at-risk populations due to specific causes.