Capacity of Public Health Surveillance to Comply with Revised International Health Regulations, USA

Armstrong, Kia E.; McNabb, Scott J. N.; Ferland, Lisa D.; Stephens, Tim; Muldoon, Anna; Fernandez, Jose A.; Ostroff, Stephen

Public health surveillance is essential for detecting and responding to infectious diseases and necessary for compliance with the revised International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005. To assess reporting capacities and compliance with IHR of all 50 states and Washington, DC, we sent a questionnaire to respective epidemiologists; 47 of 51 responded. Overall reporting capacity was high. Eighty-one percent of respondents reported being able to transmit notifications about unknown or unexpected events to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) daily. Additionally, 80% of respondents reported use of a risk assessment tool to determine whether CDC should be notified of possible public health emergencies. These findings suggest that most states have systems in place to ensure compliance with IHR. However, full state-level compliance will require additional efforts.