Browsing by Subject "Public Health Surveillance"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Electronic health information quality challenges and interventions to improve public health surveillance data and practice
    (Association of Schools of Public Health, 2013) Dixon, Brian E.; Siegel, Jason A.; Oemig, Tanya V.; Grannis, Shaun J.; Computer & Information Science, School of Science
    OBJECTIVE: We examined completeness, an attribute of data quality, in the context of electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) of notifiable disease information to public health agencies. METHODS: We extracted more than seven million ELR messages from multiple clinical information systems in two states. We calculated and compared the completeness of various data fields within the messages that were identified to be important to public health reporting processes. We compared unaltered, original messages from source systems with similar messages from another state as well as messages enriched by a health information exchange (HIE). Our analysis focused on calculating completeness (i.e., the number of nonmissing values) for fields deemed important for inclusion in notifiable disease case reports. RESULTS: The completeness of data fields for laboratory transactions varied across clinical information systems and jurisdictions. Fields identifying the patient and test results were usually complete (97%-100%). Fields containing patient demographics, patient contact information, and provider contact information were suboptimal (6%-89%). Transactions enhanced by the HIE were found to be more complete (increases ranged from 2% to 25%) than the original messages. CONCLUSION: ELR data from clinical information systems can be of suboptimal quality. Public health monitoring of data sources and augmentation of ELR message content using HIE services can improve data quality.
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    Mitigation of COVID-19 at the 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men's Basketball Tournament
    (Springer, 2022-11-10) Dixon, Brian E.; Fadel, William F.; Duszynski, Thomas J.; Caine, Virgina A.; Meyer , Joeseph F.; Saysana , Michele; Epidemiology, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health
    Background Data are lacking regarding the risk of viral SARS-CoV-2 transmission during a large indoor sporting event involving fans utilizing a controlled environment. We sought to describe case characteristics, mitigation protocols used, variants detected, and secondary infections detected during the 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Basketball Tournament involving collegiate athletes from across the U.S. Methods This retrospective cohort study used data collected from March 16 to April 3, 2021, as part of a closed environment which required daily reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing, social distancing, universal masking, and limited contact between tiers of participants. Nearly 3000 players, staff, and vendors participated in indoor, unmasked activities that involved direct exposure between cases and noninfected individuals. The main outcome of interest was transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, as measured by the number of new infections and variant(s) detected among positive cases. Secondary infections were identified through contact tracing by public health officials. Results Out of 2660 participants, 15 individuals (0.56%) screened positive for SARS-CoV-2. Four cases involved players or officials, and all cases were detected before any individual played in or officiated a game. Secondary transmissions all occurred outside the controlled environment. Among those disqualified from the tournament (4 cases; 26.7%), all individuals tested positive for the Iota variant (B.1.526). All other cases involved the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7). Nearly all teams (N = 58; 85.3%) reported that some individuals had received at least one dose of a vaccine. Overall, 17.9% of participants either had at least one dose of the vaccine or possessed documented infection within 90 days of the tournament. Conclusion In this retrospective cohort study of the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament closed environment, only a few cases were detected, and they were discovered in advance of potential exposure. These findings support the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for large indoor sporting events during the COVID-19 pandemic.