The concept of big data, commonly characterized by volume, variety, velocity, and veracity, goes far beyond the data type and includes the aspects of data analysis, such as hypothesis-generating, rather than hypothesis-testing. Big data focuses on temporal stability of the association, rather than on causal relationship and underlying probability distribution assumptions are frequently not requ...

Introduction Vast amounts of free, real-time, localizable Twitter data offer new possibilities for public health workers to identify trends and attitudes that more traditional surveillance methods may not capture, particularly in emerging areas of public health concern where reliable statistical evidence is not readily accessible. Existing applications include tracking public informedness durin...

Geocoding is increasingly being used for public health surveillance and spatial epidemiology studies. Public health departments in the United States of America (USA) often use this approach to investigate disease outbreaks and clusters or assign health records to appropriate geographic units. We evaluated two commonly used geocoding software packages, ArcGIS and MapMarker, for automated geocodi...

H. K. GREEN, A. CHARLETT, J. MORAN-GILAD, D. FLEMING, H. DURNALL, D. RH. THOMAS, S. COTTRELL, B. SMYTH, C. KEARNS, A. J. REYNOLDS, G. E. SMITH, A. J. ELLIOT, J. ELLIS, M. ZAMBON, J. M. WATSON, J. MCMENAMIN AND R. G. PEBODY* Respiratory Diseases Department, Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control, Public Health England, London, UK Royal College of General Practitioners, Birmingham...

Objective This roundtable will address how multiple data sources, including administrative and syndromic surveillance data, can enhance public health surveillance activities at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Provisional findings from three studies will be presented to promote discussion about the complementary uses, strengths and limitations, and value of these data sources to...

BACKGROUND Notifiable disease surveillance in the United States is predominantly a passive process that is often limited by poor timeliness and low sensitivity. Interoperable tools are needed that interact more seamlessly with existing clinical and laboratory data to improve notifiable disease surveillance. DESCRIPTION The Public Health Surveillance Knowledgebase (PHSkb) is a computer databas...

Introduction Under the revised International Health Regulations (IHR [2005]) one of the eight core capacities is public health surveillance. In May 2012, despite a concerted effort by the global community, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported out that a significant number of member states would not achieve targeted capacity in the IHR (2005) surveillance core capacity. Currently, there ...

BACKGROUND Despite widespread implementation of syndromic surveillance systems within public health agencies, previous studies of the implementation and use of these systems have indicated that the functions and responses taken in response to syndromic surveillance data vary widely according to local context and preferences. The objective of the Syndromic Surveillance Evaluation Study was to de...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a serious public health concern throughout the world. Despite its public health prominence, however, how surveillance systems for hepatitis C should be designed is still a challenging issue especially in developing countries such as Iran. Establishing a surveillance system needs an ongoing process of case investigation, data collection, analysis of data and ...

Among Alexander Langmuir's many accomplishments in public health and epidemiology, his contributions to public health surveillance were pivotal. Langmuir credited William Farr with founding the modem concepts of surveillance in the nineteenth century (1). However, it was Langmuir who built on his own introduction to public health practice in the Westchester County (New York) Health Department t...