Syndromic Surveillance and Spatial Epidemiology

Find out how data can help improve horse owners’ knowledge of equine disease risks in their area.
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Syndromic surveillance is the use of existing health data to provide real-time analysis and feedback to epidemiologists in the investigation of disease outbreaks. Spatial epidemiology is a subfield of health geography that allows the study of the distribution of disease and health outcomes.

Utilizing both approaches allows for the mapping of disease geographically for correlation studies and detection of disease clusters (e.g., an unusually high incidence of a particular disease or syndrome occurring in close proximity in terms of both geography and time). These methods are used to improve early detection of disease outbreaks or biologic terrorism in human and veterinary medicine.

Over the last ten years, the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (UKVDL) has established an epidemiology section and implemented multiple surveillance, reporting, and alerting systems to monitor animal health. Utilizing a custom syndromic event simulator, the UKVDL uses test results and syndromic events (e.g., abortions, cases of respiratory disease, number of deaths) to monitor the health of Kentucky’s animal population to predict and model early disease outbreaks. This simulator monitors each day’s syndromic events combined with the previous 29 days of data to create a “moving” 30-day window.

These data are then compared with historical data during the same time frame over the last five years (e.g., background rate of disease bounded by time and space). This mathematical approach allows us to statistically calculate if increased levels of specific events are occurring. Any data set that indicates an increased level of disease is then geocoded into map coordinates to alert UKVDL epidemiologists of a potential outbreak. Any indication by the program of a possible outbreak is then investigated and verified by the epidemiology section. Upon verification of an increase in sickness or deaths, the UKVDL then alerts Kentucky veterinarians and officials

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