Journal article
Development and Application of Syndromic Surveillance for Severe Weather Events Following Hurricane Sandy
Disaster medicine and public health preparedness, v 10(3), pp 463-471
Jun 2016
PMID: 27146906
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Following Hurricane Superstorm Sandy, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) developed indicators to enhance syndromic surveillance for extreme weather events in EpiCenter, an online system that collects and analyzes real-time chief complaint emergency department (ED) data and classifies each visit by indicator or syndrome.
These severe weather indicators were finalized by using 2 steps: (1) key word inclusion by review of chief complaints from cases where diagnostic codes met selection criteria and (2) key word exclusion by evaluating cases with key words of interest that lacked selected diagnostic codes.
Graphs compared 1-month, 3-month, and 1-year periods of 8 Hurricane Sandy-related severe weather event indicators against the same period in the following year. Spikes in overall ED visits were observed immediately after the hurricane for carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, the 3 disrupted outpatient medical care indicators, asthma, and methadone-related substance use. Zip code level scan statistics indicated clusters of CO poisoning and increased medicine refill needs during the 2 weeks after Hurricane Sandy. CO poisoning clusters were identified in areas with power outages of 4 days or longer.
This endeavor gave the NJDOH a clearer picture of the effects of Hurricane Sandy and yielded valuable state preparation information to monitor the effects of future severe weather events. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:463-471).
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Details
- Title
- Development and Application of Syndromic Surveillance for Severe Weather Events Following Hurricane Sandy
- Creators
- Stella Tsai - New Jersey Department of HealthTeresa Hamby - New Jersey Department of HealthAlvin Chu - New Jersey Department of HealthJessie A Gleason - New Jersey Department of HealthGabrielle M Goodrow - Brown UniversityHui Gu - New Jersey Department of HealthEdward Lifshitz - New Jersey Department of HealthJerald A Fagliano - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Disaster medicine and public health preparedness, v 10(3), pp 463-471
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Grant note
- CDC RFA-TP-13-001 / CDC HHS
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Environmental and Occupational Health
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000379130700022
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84965047356
- Other Identifier
- 991019168030204721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health