Assessment of a Syndromic Surveillance System Based on Morbidity Data: Results from the Oscour® Network during a Heat Wave

Abstract

BackgroundSyndromic surveillance systems have been developed in recent years and are now increasingly used by stakeholders to quickly answer questions and make important decisions. It is therefore essential to evaluate the quality and utility of such systems. This study was designed to assess a syndromic surveillance system based on emergency departments' (ED) morbidity rates related to the health effects of heat waves. This study uses data collected during the 2006 heat wave in France.MethodsData recorded from 15 EDs in the Ile-de-France (Paris and surrounding area) from June to August, 2006, were transmitted daily via the Internet to the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance. Items collected included diagnosis (ICD10), outcome, and age. Several aspects of the system have been evaluated (data quality, cost, flexibility, stability, and performance). Periods of heat wave are considered the most suitable time to evaluate the system.ResultsData quality did not vary significantly during the period. Age, gender and outcome were completed in a comprehensive manner. Diagnoses were missing or uninformative for 37.5% of patients. Stability was recorded as being 99.49% for the period overall. The average cost per day over the study period was estimated to be €287. Diagnoses of hyperthermia, malaise, dehydration, hyponatremia were correlated with increased temperatures. Malaise was most sensitive in younger and elderly adults but also the less specific. However, overall syndrome groups were more sensitive with comparable specificity than individual diagnoses.ConclusionThis system satisfactorily detected the health impact of hot days (observed values were higher than expected on more than 90% of days on which a heat alert was issued). Our findings should reassure stakeholders about the reliability of health impact assessments during or following such an event. These evaluations are essential to establish the validity of the results of syndromic surveillance systems.

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“…In Réunion, conjunctivitis is monitored routinely by the OSCOUR network [7]. This syndromic surveillance system is based on data collected by the six EDs of the island.…”

Evaluating an incentive based syndromic case reporting model using local health volunteers for predicting and preventing chikungunya epidemics in North Kerala, India

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Issues in Building a Nursing Home Syndromic Surveillance System with Textmining: Longitudinal Observational Study (Preprint)

“…Following the process described §2.3, the whole procedure was reviewed through 3 weeks of transmissions: one in mid-August 2016 when there was no epidemic and two in January 2017, respectively, at the ILI and AGE epidemic week peaks, according to the Sentinelles network [71], computing the percentage of miss-coded Flue & Acute Respiratory infections and Acute Gastro Enteritis & Diarrhea syndromes among the extracted transmissions defined as such [23].…”

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