The Need for Address Based Data: Disaggregation of Syndromic Surveillance Systems

Introduction Epidemiological surveillance is used to monitor time trends in diseases and the distribution of the diseases in the population. To streamline the process of identifying outbreaks, and notification of disease, syndromic surveillance has emerged as a method to report and analyze health data. Rather than report data by disease status (ie disease/no disease), clinical symptoms are used to detect outbreaks as early as possible.1 Currently, only data collected via active surveillance (notifiable disease investigations) are usable for identifying communities that require attention. Therefore, any interventions performed using said data is reactive in nature. Syndromic surveillance systems must be disaggregated to enable proactive health promotion, and responses. Furthermore, a common method must be established to assess the overall impact of syndromes. Diseases are not equal; some have a greater impact on health, and life. To address this issue, the World Health Organization (WHO) has created disability weights to be used in calculating disability adjusted life years (DALY).2 DALYs are effective in calculating the overall impact of disease in a community. DALYs estimate the burden of disease, not syndromes; therefore, it is reactive tool. To create a more effective syndromic surveillance system, syndromes must be associated with an overall impact weight.