National and Regional Representativeness of Hospital Emergency Department Visit Data in the National Syndromic Surveillance Program, United States, 2014

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Disaster Med Public Health Prep
• Personal Author:
  Coates, Ralph J. ; Pérez, Alejandro ; Baer, Atar ; Zhou, Hong ; English, Roseanne ; Coletta, Michael ; Dey, Achintya
• Description:
  Objective
  
  We examined the representativeness of the nonfederal hospital emergency department (ED) visit data in the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP).
  
  Methods
  
  We used the 2012 American Hospital Association Annual Survey Database, other databases, and information from state and local health departments participating in the NSSP about which hospitals submitted data to the NSSP in October 2014. We compared ED visits for hospitals submitting 15 data with all ED visits in all 50 states and Washington, DC.
  
  Results
  
  Approximately 60.4 million of 134.6 million ED visits nationwide (~45%) were reported to have been submitted to the NSSP. ED visits in 5 of 10 regions and the majority of the states were substantially underrepresented in the NSSP. The NSSP ED visits were similar to national ED visits in terms of many of the characteristics of hospitals and their service areas. However, visits in hospitals with the fewest annual ED visits, in rural trauma centers, and in hospitals serving populations with high percentages of Hispanics and Asians were underrepresented.
  
  Conclusions
  
  NSSP nonfederal hospital ED visit data were representative for many hospital characteristics and in some geographic areas but were not very representative nationally and in many locations. Representativeness could be improved by increasing participation in more states and among specific types of hospitals.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Article Emergency Service, Hospital Hospitals Humans Population Surveillance Public Health Preparedness Research Design Situational Awareness Syndrome Syndromic Surveillance United States

  More +
• Source:
  Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 10(4):562-569
• Pubmed ID:
  26883318
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC4946977
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  CC999999/Intramural CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  10
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:0d629ffcfe6041e55da92ff4b85dc5d54908528305ed42e3e1801870c3df9264
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/40418/cdc_40418_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 347.45 KB ]