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11 - Syndromic Surveillance

from PART II - OPERATIONAL ISSUES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2011

By
Gary A. Roselle
Edited by
Kristi L. Koenig  and
Carl H. Schultz
Kristi L. Koenig
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
Carl H. Schultz
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Summary

OVERVIEW

Syndromic surveillance has been defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “the collection and analysis of health-related data that precede diagnoses or laboratory confirmation and signal with sufficient probability a case or an outbreak for further public health response.” Based on its original definition, the purpose of syndromic surveillance would be to prevent morbidity and mortality by early identification of case clusters in which mitigation would affect the outcome of the disease's natural course. This original definition was designed for early event detection and became prominent in the public domain after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent anthrax illnesses and deaths.

With a heightened sense of urgency related to the so-called “war on terror,” many systems were put into place within the United States for the protection of the public health. These included such diverse programs as vaccine initiatives (BioShield), static detectors located throughout large cities to identify specific organisms of interest in the air (BioWatch), and the beginning of a national syndromic surveillance system for early detection of outbreaks (BioSense). These three initiatives were designed for the following reasons, respectively: 1) prevention of disease if a terrorist attack occurred; 2) early identification of airborne pathogens during the asymptomatic phase of such disease; and 3) early identification of illness prior to definitive diagnosis that would be confirmed either by culture or laboratory tests.

Keywords

data integrationmathematical data analysisnonhuman dataU.S. surveillance systemspublic health authoritiessyndromic surveillance system
Type
Chapter
Information
Koenig and Schultz's Disaster Medicine
Comprehensive Principles and Practices
 , pp. 165 - 173
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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References

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