title: Self-reported fever and measured temperature in emergency department records used for syndromic surveillance.
abstract: Many public health agencies monitor population health using syndromic surveillance, generally employing information from emergency department (ED) visit records. When combined with other information, objective evidence of fever may enhance the accuracy with which surveillance systems detect syndromes of interest, such as influenza-like illness. This study found that patient chief complaint of self-reported fever was more readily available in ED records than measured temperature and that the majority of patients with an elevated temperature recorded also self-reported fever. Due to its currently limited availability, we conclude that measured temperature is likely to add little value to self-reported fever in syndromic surveillance for febrile illness using ED records.
authors.affiliation: Public Health Surveillance and Informatics Program Office, Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Laboratory Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30329, USA. tik2@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Taha A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Kass-Hout
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Buckeridge
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brownstein
authors.forename: Zhiheng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McMurray
authors.forename: Charles K T
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Ishikawa
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gunn
authors.forename: Barbara L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Massoudi
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005334:Fever / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D062125:Thermometry; D014218:Triage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology