Fever in Children - an Assessment of Validity by a Shewhart Model in a Syndromic Surveillance System in China

Methods A total of 167 health facilities including 2 county hospitals, 15 township hospitals and 150 village health stations were sampled as surveillance sites in 2 counties in Jiangxi province, China. Health facility visits of patients with ten major symptoms including fever, cough, sore throat, diarrhea, and nausea/vomiting, together with their age and gender were reported to a web-based platform during April 2012 and March 2014. Data on children patients with CID common infectious diseases (CID) in these two counties reported to the CISDCP during the same period were retrieved including measles, hand foot mouth disease (HFMD), chickenpox, rubella, influenza, and mump. The time trend and alert signals in both ISSC and CISDCP were generated by Shewhart model [3] (baseline=15 days, lag= 2 days, =3). Sensitivity and PPV were used to compare the signals generated in ISSC with that in CISDCP (using the signals in CISDCP as reference). A matched signal was defined as a signal generated in ISSC having at least one corresponding signal occurred in CISDCP within a duration of 7 days.