Telephone Survey to Assess Influenza-like Illness, United States, 2006

摘要

Although current national response plans assume that most in. uenza-infected patients would stay home during a pandemic, surveillance systems might be overwhelmed and unable to monitor their health status. We explored the feasibility of using a nationwide telephone survey to moni-tor at-home patients. Of randomly selected adults surveyed during low in. uenza activity months (April–October 2006, surveillance weeks 17–41), 86% (7,268/8,449) agreed to an-swer questions about health status and in. uenza-like illness symptoms. Three percent (230/7,628) self-reported ". u." A subset (0.9%, 68/230) self-reported fever. In comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Sentinel Pro-vider Network reported clinical in. uenza-like illness rates of 1.2%, 0.9%, and 1.2% for weeks 17, 20, and 41, respectively. The consistency between information obtained by telephone and surveillance data warrants further studies to determine whether telephone surveys can accurately monitor health status during seasonal in. uenza peaks and to augment cur-rent surveillance systems during a pandemic