Syndromic Surveillance in Perry County

What is Syndromic Surveillance?

Syndromic surveillance refers to methods that rely on detection of individual and population health indicators that are discernible before confirmed diagnoses are made. In particular, prior to the laboratory confirmation of an infectious disease, ill persons may exhibit behavioral patterns, symptoms, signs, or laboratory findings that can be tracked through a variety of data sources. In short, syndromic surveillance is Perry County's early warning system to safeguard our health. (J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2004;11:141-150).

There are health related concerns regionally and across the globe, namely Avian Influenza and fears of more bioterrorist attacks. A syndromic surveillance program here in Perry County would help save lives by catching potential outbreaks in their infancy. The Pinckneyville Ambulance Service is already participating by sending us their daily de-identified patient runs and both our county hospitals send symptomatic information with us on a daily basis to safeguard against any natural or man-made biological threats.

We collect and analyze specific data to detect health-triggered anomalies expressing themselves in our data collection. When people get sick they tend to purchase over-the-counter medications, call off work or school, or show an increased number of visits to emergency rooms, psychologists, or family physicians. Capturing and analyzing the above examples of data allow us to quickly detect and contain outbreaks before they spread further and infect other individuals.

How Syndromic Surveillance Works

Syndrome charts are an example of how the Perry County Health Department uses daily health reports to gather possible health threats in our community. Syndromic surveillance starts with daily anonymous patient data from Marshall Browning Hospital, Pinckneyville Community Hospital and Pinckneyville Ambulance Service being sent to the Perry County Health Depar tment for data analysis. The health department staff inputs the data into a graph set to detect a pattern of abnormalities. These patterns reveal trends that can warrant further investigation to detect a man made or naturally occurring health threat in Perry County.

In the above snapshot, Syndromes Reported by Hospitals, Perry County, Illinois chart, we can look for syndromes associated with mumps from March 28 thru April 5th. The symptoms charted are respiratory problems, fever, gastrointestinal illness and influenza like illness. The chart reveals an upward spike starting on April 4th. Further investigation reveals a high probability the upswing is being manifested by allergies reacting to the higher spore counts in the atmosphere during springtime.

View the complete PCHD Syndromic Surveillance Data (requires microsoft excel)