Public Health Syndromic Surveillance Systems

Chen, Hsinchun; Zeng, Daniel; Yan, Ping

In this chapter, we summarize the key local, state, national, and international syndromic surveillance systems and related ongoing research programs of interest covered in our study. This summary provides the needed background information and application contexts. It also offers a current snapshot of syndromic surveillance practice in general. Note that as our primary focus is on public health surveillance, closely-related issues such as response planning and resource allocations strategies after an event is confirmed (e.g., Carley et al., 2003) are beyond the scope of this study. For each system surveyed, we list its main contributors and stakeholders. We also include an overall system/project description, relevant data sources, syndromes monitored, data analysis and outbreak detection methods implemented, frequency of data collection and analysis, whether a GIS component is used, and its deployment strategy and status.