High added value of a population-based participatory surveillance system for community acute gastrointestinal, respiratory and influenza-like illnesses in Sweden, 2013–2014 using the web

Abstract

SUMMARYIn 2013–2014, the Public Health Agency of Sweden developed a web-based participatory surveillance system, Hӓlsorapport, based on a random sample of individuals reporting symptoms weekly online, to estimate the community incidence of self-reported acute gastrointestinal (AGI), acute respiratory (ARI) and influenza-like (ILI) illnesses and their severity. We evaluated Hӓlsorapport's acceptability, completeness, representativeness and its data correlation with other surveillance data. We calculated response proportions and Spearman correlation coefficients (r) between (i) incidence of illnesses in Hӓlsorapport and (ii) proportions of specific search terms to medical-advice website and reasons for calling a medical advice hotline. Of 34 748 invitees, 3245 (9·3%) joined the cohort. Participants answered 81% (139 013) of the weekly questionnaires and 90% (16 351) of follow-up questionnaires. AGI incidence correlated with searches on winter-vomiting disease [r = 0·81, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0·69–0·89], and ARI incidence correlated with searches on cough (r = 0·77, 95% CI 0·62–0·86). ILI incidence correlated with the web query-based estimated incidence of ILI patients consulting physicians (r = 0·63, 95% CI 0·42–0·77). The high response to different questionnaires and the correlation with other syndromic surveillance systems suggest that Hӓlsorapport offers a reasonable representation of AGI, ARI and ILI patterns in the community and can complement traditional and syndromic surveillance systems to estimate their burden in the community.

Performance of a Mobile Phone App-Based Participatory Syndromic Surveillance System for Acute Febrile Illness and Acute Gastroenteritis in Rural Guatemala

“…Allowing study nurses to manually enter participant data into the database, instead of the participants, led to improved reporting overall but was associated with decreased self-reporting, somewhat undermining the participatory syndromic surveillance system. Prior to this intervention, the reporting rate (74%) was consistent with participatory syndromic surveillance studies in non-LMICs [ 12 , 13 , 29 , 30 ], and depending on the needs of the surveillance system (eg, vaccine effectiveness, outbreak response), may be sufficient. Further studies are needed to better define the role of participatory syndromic surveillance in these specific settings, and to optimize the interaction between participant and study personnel.…”

“…Demographic variables were compared between the households with 70% or greater response rate and those with less than 70% response rate using a generalized linear model with at binomial response distribution and a log link function. The 70% cutoff was chosen based on response rates observed in previous participatory syndromic surveillance studies in non-LMICs [ 12 , 13 , 29 , 30 ]. Agreement of symptoms reported on the Vigilant-e app versus those reported by study nurses at the home visits were calculated using Kendall tau for continuous variables and kappa statistic for categorical variables.…”

Research Ethics in the European Influenzanet Consortium: Scoping Review

“…The Swiss national platform [ 45 ] has obtained ethical approval for the launch of its mobile app before the start of the flu season 2017/2018. Registration and participation to the national platforms were open and nondiscriminative to all residents of the respective countries [ 12 , 14 ], except for the Swedish platform, where participation is through invitations only [ 17 , 18 ]. The Web-based information on the study was provided to all Influenzanet participants and informed electronic consents were obtained from participants in 9 of 11 national Influenzanet platforms.…”

Prioritizing COVID-19 tests based on participatory surveillance and spatial scanning

“…Participatory surveillance has shown promising results from its conception to its application in several public health events [ [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] ]. The use of a collaborative information pathway provides a rapid way for the data collection on symptomatic individuals in the territory, to complement traditional health surveillance systems [ 7 , 8 ]. In Brazil, this methodology has been used at the national level since 2014 during mass gatherings events since they have great importance for monitoring public health emergencies [ 9 , 10 ].…”