Evaluation of routinely collected veterinary and human health data for surveillance of human tick-borne diseases in North Carolina.
Tick-borne diseases are an important cause of human morbidity in North Carolina. This study evaluated the use of routinely collected veterinary hospital and human hospital emergency department (ED) data for earlier signal detection compared with routine reporting of tick-borne diseases to the North Carolina Division of Public Health in 2006 and 2007. The Early Aberration Reporting System was used to detect the earliest indication of an increase in number of dogs infested with ticks that were brought to veterinary hospitals and in number of people presenting to EDs with a tick-related chief complaint or who had an ED International Classification of Diseases diagnosis code of tick-borne disease. Results indicate that systematic monitoring of veterinary hospital and human ED data can detect increases in tick activity 4 weeks earlier than the current surveillance method, which would facilitate timely initiation of tick prevention and increased clinical awareness among veterinarians and physicians.
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. srhea@email.unc.edu
Sarah K
SK
Rhea
Seth W
SW
Glickman
Anna
A
Waller
Amy
A
Ising
Jean-Marie
JM
Maillard
Elizabeth M
EM
Lund
Larry T
LT
Glickman
D000818:Animals; D004285:Dogs; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D006762:Hospitals, Animal; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D009657:North Carolina / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011634:Public Health; D017282:Tick-Borne Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000662:veterinary*; D013987:Ticks / Q000502:physiology