A Practitioner-Driven Research Agenda for Syndromic Surveillance

Richard S Hopkins; Catherine C Tong; Howard S Burkom; Judy E Akkina; John Berezowski; Mika Shigematsu; Patrick D Finley; Ian Painter; Roland Gamache; Victor J Del Rio Vilas; Laura C Streichert

doi:10.1177/0033354917709784

A Practitioner-Driven Research Agenda for Syndromic Surveillance

Public Health Rep. 2017 Jul/Aug;132(1_suppl):116S-126S. doi: 10.1177/0033354917709784.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ 1 Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health and Health Professions and College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
² 2 International Society for Disease Surveillance, Braintree, MA, USA.
³ 3 Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA.
⁴ 4 Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health, Veterinary Services, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, US Department of Agriculture, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
⁵ 5 Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁶ 6 International Biological and Chemical Threat Reduction Program, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
⁷ 7 National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan.
⁸ 8 Department of Operations Research and Computational Analysis, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
⁹ 9 Department of Health Services, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹⁰ 10 Gamache Consulting, Rockville, MD, USA.
¹¹ 11 School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey, Kent, UK.
¹² 12 Center for Population Health Information Technology, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹³ 13 School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.

Abstract

Syndromic surveillance has expanded since 2001 in both scope and geographic reach and has benefited from research studies adapted from numerous disciplines. The practice of syndromic surveillance continues to evolve rapidly. The International Society for Disease Surveillance solicited input from its global surveillance network on key research questions, with the goal of improving syndromic surveillance practice. A workgroup of syndromic surveillance subject matter experts was convened from February to June 2016 to review and categorize the proposed topics. The workgroup identified 12 topic areas in 4 syndromic surveillance categories: informatics, analytics, systems research, and communications. This article details the context of each topic and its implications for public health. This research agenda can help catalyze the research that public health practitioners identified as most important.

Keywords: research agenda; syndromic surveillance.

MeSH terms

Communication
Data Accuracy
Humans
Information Dissemination
Population Surveillance / methods*
Public Health Informatics*
Research*

Grants and funding

U38 OT000143/OT/OSTLTS CDC HHS/United States