Interpreting specific and general respiratory indicators in syndromic surveillance

Morbey, Roger; Elliot, Alex J.; Zambon, Maria; Pebody, Richard; Smith, Gillian E.

PHE uses a range of general and specific respiratory syndromic indicators in their syndromic surveillance systems, e.g. "all respiratory disease", "influenza-like illness", "bronchitis" and "cough". Previous research has shown that "influenza-like illness" is associated with influenza circulating in the community 1 whilst "cough" and "bronchitis" syndromic indicators in children under 5 are associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) 2, 3 . However, the relative burden of other pathogens, e.g. rhinovirus and parainfluenza is less well understood. We have sought to further understand the relationship between specific pathogens and syndromic indicators and to improve estimates of disease burden. Therefore, we modelled the association between pathogen incidence, using laboratory reports and health care presentations, using syndromic data.