A Value-Driven Framework For The Evaluation Of Biosurveillance Systems

Evaluation and strengthening of biosurveillance systems is acomplex process that involves sequential decision steps, numerous stakeholders, and requires accommodating multiple and conflicting objectives. Biosurveillance evaluation, the initiating step towards biosurveillance strengthening, is a multi-dimensional decision problem that can be properly addressed via multi-criteria-decision models.Existing evaluation frameworks tend to focus on “hard” technical attributes (e.g. sensitivity) while ignoring other “soft” criteria (e.g. transparency) of difficult measurement and aggregation.

June 20, 2017

Administrative and syndromic surveillance data can enhance public health surveillance

Healthcare data, including emergency department (ED) and outpatient health visit data, are potentially useful to the public health community for multiple purposes, including programmatic and surveillance activities. These data are collected through several mechanisms, including administrative data sources [e.g., MarketScan claims data1; American Hospital Association (AHA) data2] andpublic health surveillance programs [e.g., the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP)3].

June 20, 2017

Houston Health Department’s response to the threat of Zika virus

Zika virus spread quickly through South and Central America in 2015. The City of Houston saw its first travel-related Zika cases in December of 2015. On January 29th, the City held the first planning meeting with regional partners from healthcare, blood banks, petrochemical companies, mosquito control, and others. Additionally the City activated Incident Command Structure (ICS) and designated the Public Health Authority as the Incident Commander.

July 06, 2017

A Suggestion to Improve Timely Feedback of Infectious Disease Surveillance Data at a Provincial Level in South Korea

In South Korea, the NNDSS is organized at three levels: local, provincial, and central. At the local level, physicians report the cased to the Public Health Center (PHC) and PHC conduct control measures. At the provincial level, the PHC reports the cases to the Department of Health (DOH) of the province and DOH obliged to report the cases to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and feedback of the surveillance data to PHC and physicians.

August 07, 2017

African One Health e-Surveillance Initiative

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can enhance public health surveillance (PHS) by facilitating the digital exchange of information. Electronic surveillance (e-Surveillance) is the use of electronic systems to empower the digitization of PHS functions of prevention, detection, and response. E-Surveillance maximizes compliance with the International Health Regulations (2005), enables efficient Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response, and empowers One Health.

August 07, 2017

Building the Road to a Regional Zoonoses Strategy: a Survey of Zoonoses Programs in the Americas

Zoonoses account for over 70% of emerging infectious diseases in humans. In recent years, global public health security has been threatened by zoonotic disease emergence as exemplified by outbreaks of H5N1 and H1N1 influenza, SARS, and most recently Ebola. The occurrence of a number of these zoonoses, and their spread to new areas, is related to globalization, environmental changes, and marginalization of populations.

August 23, 2017

Enhancing Syndromic Surveillance at a Local Public Health Department

The mission of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH; Arizona) is to protect and promote the health and well-being of its residents and visitors. Surveillance efforts allow epidemiologists to quantify and characterize public health threats, but traditional methods take time. In an effort to enhance situational awareness, the Office of Epidemiology dedicated resources to begin developing a robust syndromic surveillance program. This abstract outlines steps for enhancing syndromic surveillance at a local public health department.

Objective

August 29, 2017

Update on the CDC National Syndromic Surveillance Program

The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 mandated establishing an integrated national public health surveillance system for early detection and rapid assessment of potential bioterrorism-related illness. In 2003, CDC created and launched the BioSense software program. At that time, CDC’s focus was on rapidly developing and implementing Web-based software to collect hospital emergency department data for analysis to detect and monitor syndromes of public health importance.

September 20, 2017

Challenges to Implementing Communicable Disease Surveillance in New York City Evacuation Shelters After Hurricane Sandy, November 2012

Hurricane Sandy hit New York City (NYC) on October 29, 2012. Before and after the storm, 73 temporary evacuation shelters were established. The total census of these shelters peaked at approximately 6,800 individuals. Concern about the spread of communicable diseases in shelters prompted the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to rapidly develop a surveillance system to report communicable diseases and emergency department transports from shelters. We describe the implementation of this system.

September 06, 2017

Developing a Guidance Document to Improve Public Health Surveillance during Disasters

During all phases of the disaster management cycle, PH surveillance plays a valuable role. Surveillance provides PH officials and stakeholders the information they need to respond to disasters and take action in an appropriate and timely manner. Despite the fact that surveillance provides a valuable function in disasters, a study by the Disaster Epidemiology Subcommittee of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) found that there are still significant differences, across states, in their use of disaster surveillance.

October 03, 2017

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Email: syndromic@cste.org

 

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