Syndromic Surveillance Systems

摘要

Syndromic surveillance is concerned with continuous monitoring of public health-related information sources and early detection of adverse disease events. Syndromic surveillance research is by nature multidisciplinary and has attracted significant attention in recent years. Syndromic surveillance systems are also being adopted to meet the critical need of effective prevention, detection, and management of infectious disease outbreaks, either naturally occurring or caused by bioterrorism attacks. This chapter presents a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art syndromic surveillance research and system development efforts from the perspective of information science and technology. Based on a detailed analysis of fifty local, state, national, and international syndromic surveillance systems and a review of about 200 academic publications, we discuss the technical challenges, applicable approaches or solutions, and the current state of system implementation and adoption for various components of syndromic surveillance systems, covering system architecture, data collection and sharing, data analysis, and data access and visualization. A case study comparing three state-of-the-art syndromic surveillance systems is presented to illustrate the technical discussions in an integrated, real-world context. Critical non-technical issues including data sharing policies and system evaluation and adoption are also discussed.