Abstract
Public health surveillance data is critical as it provides actionable information to guide public health response. Thirty interviews were conducted across North Carolina from May to September, 2009 with local public health department staff to describe the use of routine syndromic surveillance data during a local outbreak and compared this to usage during a large, statewide outbreak, during which the state disseminated syndromic data. The study examined the use of the syndromic surveillance system (NC DETECT) and the reportable communicable disease system (NC EDSS) during the 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) pandemic and during another respondent-selected infectious disease outbreak. A larger percent of local health department (LHD) staff reported using information from NC DETECT (52%) during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic than during another infectious disease outbreak (20%) (P value = 0.01). North Carolina local public health staff used information from syndromic surveillance data more when the state health department disseminated summary syndromic surveillance reports than when this summary information was not provided. State aggregation and dissemination of timely and disease-relevant syndromic surveillance data may facilitate greater usage of such information at the local health department level. Key words: Public health surveillance, public health practice, outbreaks, influenza A virus (H1N1) subtype.
Highlights
Surveillance data cannot be used as part of optimally controlling an outbreak unless it is effectively integrated into public health practice at the local health department level (Stoto et al, 2004)
Providing summary syndromic surveillance reports, rather than or in addition to requiring local level staff to directly access the syndromic surveillance system and generate their own reports, may facilitate the integration of this information with the other types of information used for outbreak response at the local level
(“Do you access NC DETECT/NC EDSS yourself?” “Do you look at NC DETECT/NC EDSS data provided by someone else?” and, “If someone else, who?”) and on NC EDSS and NC DETECT usage for both the H1N1 pandemic and another prior reportable disease outbreak ((during this outbreak) “Did anyone look at data from NC
Summary
Public health departments receive surveillance data from a variety of sources, including clinicians, syndromic surveillance systems and more traditional infectious disease reporting systems (Burkom et al, 2005). At the local health department level, it is often difficult to use syndromic surveillance systems to obtain actionable information because of the over-abundance of records and the nonspecific nature of the information provided (Szpiro et al, 2007). Surveillance data cannot be used as part of optimally controlling an outbreak unless it is effectively integrated into public health practice at the local health department level (Stoto et al., 2004). Providing summary syndromic surveillance reports, rather than or in addition to requiring local level staff to directly access the syndromic surveillance system and generate their own reports, may facilitate the integration of this information with the other types of information used for outbreak response at the local level
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