Recorded presentation

Michael A. Stoto, PhD¹, Arvind Jain, MS¹, John O. Davies-Cole, PhD, MPH², Aaron Adade, PhD², Samuel C Washington, MPH², and Gebreyesus Kidane, PhD³. (1) Statistics group and RAND Health, RAND, 1200 South Hayes St., Arlington, VA 22202-5050, 703-413-1100 x5472, mstoto@rand.org, (2) Bureau of Epidemiology and Health Risk Assessment, District of Columbia Department of Health, 825 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002, (3) Bureau of Epidemiology & Health Risk Assessment, District of Columbia Department of Health, 825 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002

Syndromic surveillance -- real-time analysis of data on patients seeking care with symptoms that may be early signs of infectious disease -- can be critical for detecting and responding to natural emerging infections as well as biological terrorism. On September 12, 2001, the District of Columbia Department of Health began a syndromic surveillance program based on counts of patients with eight different syndromes from eight hospitals in the District. Our analysis will evaluate the effectiveness and usefulness of this system through the following analyses: (1) Time series analyses of trends and patterns in the data, both in the aggregate and broken down by hospital and syndrome. (2) Development of predictive models describing expected background patterns of syndromic reports absent a disease outbreak or attack, including the development of methods to deal with day of the week effects and missing data. (3) Comparisons of the timing of possible signals in the syndromic surveillance data with other data sources that cover the same population and time period. (4) Development, testing, and characterization of the sensitivity, specificity, and timeliness of statistical detection algorithms appropriate for multiple data streams, tested against simulated disease patterns that would be expected in a variety of bioterrorist attacks and natural disease outbreaks, and (to the extent possible) empirical data on outbreaks identified through traditional means.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Understand the basic concepts and methods of syndromic surveillance
• 2. Review methods used to evaluate Biosurveillance systems
• 3. Clarify the strengths and weaknesses of syndromic surveillance

Keywords: Surveillance, Bioterrorism

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation