Public healthSchools help spot disease outbreaks early

Local public health authorities in Canada are teaming up with schools to develop an early warning disease tracking system.

In an effort to spot potential disease outbreaks before they occur, health officials in Peel, Canada are monitoring school absenteeism and emergency department visits.

Under a recently launched pilot program, nine local schools in the region as well as the Brampton Civic Hospital will provide the Peel Public Health department with data.

Each day the schools will send the health department a report with the number of student absences along with a breakdown of the number of students absent due to respiratory, gastrointestinal, or other illnesses.

Officials say monitoring student absentee reports in 2010 helped spot a gastroenteritis outbreak early. In addition communicating with schools early on and providing administrators with infection control messaging was a key factor in controlling the outbreak.

The latest program comes as part of a broader effort by Peel public health officials to monitor infectious diseases including an initiative started in 2004 that tracks emergency room visits at hospitals. The program currently tracks emergency department visits in real-time in fifty-five hospitals across Ontario.

The system will automatically send an alert to the Peel Public Health department if any significant increases in emergency room are detected. In particular, health officials are keen to monitor respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses.