In 2012, Vanuatu designed and implemented a syndromic surveillance system based on the guidelines developed by the Pacific Community and the World Health Organization to provide early warning of outbreaks and other important public health events. Four core syndromes were endorsed for surveillance: acute fever and rash, prolonged fever, influenza-like illness and acute watery diarrhoea. In March...

Syndromic surveillance systems aim to support early detection of salient disease outbreaks, and to shed timely light on the size and spread of pandemic outbreaks. They can also be used more generally to monitor disease trends and provide reassurance that an outbreak has not occurred. One commonly used technique for syndromic surveillance is concerned with classifying Emergency Department data, ...

Introduction Drug overdoses and related deaths have been escalating nationally since 19701. In Virginia, the rate of drug overdose deaths increased 36% from 5.0 to 6.8 deaths per 100,000 population between 1999 and 20102. While initiated for bioterrorism event detection, syndromic surveillance has shown utility when extended to other health issues. ED visits may complement information from Over...

Introduction Kansas storms can occur without warning and have potential to cause a multitude of health issues. Extreme weather preparedness and event monitoring for public health effects is being developed as a function of syndromic surveillance at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). The Syndromic Surveillance Program at KDHE utilized emergency department (ED) data to detect...

The health care system in Papua New Guinea is fragile, and surveillance systems infrequently meet international standards. To strengthen outbreak identification, health authorities piloted a mobile phone-based syndromic surveillance system and used established frameworks to evaluate whether the system was meeting objectives. Stakeholder experience was investigated by using standardized question...

Syndromic surveillance, the collection of symptom data from individuals prior to or in the absence of diagnosis, is used throughout the developed world to provide rapid indications of outbreaks and unusual patterns of disease. However, the low cost of syndromic surveillance also makes it highly attractive for the developing world. We present a case study of electronic participatory syndromic su...

Objective This roundtable will provide a forum for national, state, and local managers of syndromic surveillance systems to discuss how they identify, monitor, and respond to changes in the nature of their data. Additionally, this session will focus on the strengths and weakness of the syndromic surveillance systems for supporting program evaluation and trend analysis. This session will also pr...

Objective This roundtable will address how multiple data sources, including administrative and syndromic surveillance data, can enhance public health surveillance activities at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Provisional findings from three studies will be presented to promote discussion about the complementary uses, strengths and limitations, and value of these data sources to...

BACKGROUND In recent years a wide variety of epidemiological surveillance systems have been developed to provide early identification of outbreaks of infectious disease. Each system has had its own strengths and weaknesses. In 2002 a Working Group of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) produced a framework for evaluation, which proved suitable for many public health surveillanc...