Roles for State-Level Local Health Liaison Officials in Local Public Health Surveillance and Capacity Building

Substance use and mental health disorders can result in disability, death, and economic cost. In the United States, rates of death from suicide, drug overdose, and chronic liver disease (a marker for alcohol abuse) have been rising for the past 15 years. Good public health surveillance for these disorders, their consequences, and their risk factors is crucially important for their prevention and control, but surveillance has not been conducted consistently in the states. In 2015, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists convened a workgroup to develop a set of uniformly defined surveillance indicators that could be used by state and local health departments to monitor these disorders and to compare their occurrence in various jurisdictions. This report briefly describes the indicators and outlines the process used to develop them.

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The Epidemiology and Surveillance Workforce among Local Health Departments in California: Mutual Aid and Surge Capacity for Routine and Emergency Infectious Disease Situations

Public Health Reports ◽

10.1177/00333549141296s415 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 129 (6_suppl4) ◽

pp. 114-122 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Wayne T.A. Enanoria ◽

Adam W. Crawley ◽

Jennifer C. Hunter ◽

Jeannie Balido ◽

Tomas J. Aragon

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Infectious Disease ◽

Public Health Surveillance ◽

Health Surveillance ◽

Local Health ◽

Mutual Aid ◽

Health Departments ◽

Local Health Departments ◽

Surge Capacity ◽

Wide Range

Objective. Public health surveillance and epidemiologic investigations are critical public health functions for identifying threats to the health of a community. We conducted a survey of local health departments (LHDs) in California to describe the workforce that supports public health surveillance and epidemiologic functions during routine and emergency infectious disease situations. Methods. The target population consisted of the 61 LHDs in California. The online survey instrument was designed to collect information about the workforce involved in key epidemiologic functions. We also examined how the public health workforce increases its epidemiologic capacity during infectious disease emergencies. Results. Of 61 LHDs in California, 31 (51%) completed the survey. A wide range of job classifications contribute to epidemiologic functions routinely, and LHDs rely on both internal and external sources of epidemiologic surge capacity during infectious disease emergencies. This study found that while 17 (55%) LHDs reported having a mutual aid agreement with at least one other organization for emergency response, only nine (29%) LHDs have a mutual aid agreement specifically for epidemiology and surveillance functions. Conclusions. LHDs rely on a diverse workforce to conduct epidemiology and public health surveillance functions, emphasizing the need to identify and describe the types of staff positions that could benefit from public health surveillance and epidemiology training. While some organizations collaborate with external partners to support these functions during an emergency, many LHDs do not rely on mutual aid agreements for epidemiology and surveillance activities.

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Utilization of cumulative antibiograms for public health surveillance: Trends in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae susceptibility, Massachusetts, 2008–2018

Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology ◽

10.1017/ice.2020.395 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Quynh T. Vo ◽

R. Monina Klevens ◽

Barbara Bolstorff ◽

Kerri Barton ◽

Melissa Cumming ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Escherichia Coli ◽

Antimicrobial Resistance ◽

Klebsiella Pneumoniae ◽

Public Health Surveillance ◽

State Level ◽

Health Surveillance ◽

The State ◽

E Coli ◽

State And Local

Abstract Background: Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent public health threat. Identifying trends in antimicrobial susceptibility can inform public health policy at the state and local levels. Objective: To determine the ability of statewide antibiogram aggregation for public health surveillance to identify changes in antimicrobial resistance trends. Design: Facility-level trend analysis. Methods: Crude and adjusted trend analyses of the susceptibility of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae to particular antibiotics, as reported by aggregated antibiograms, were examined from 2008 through 2018. Multivariable regression analyses via generalized linear mixed models were used to examine associations between hospital characteristics and trends of E. coli and K. pneumoniae susceptibility to ciprofloxacin and ceftriaxone. Results: E. coli and K. pneumoniae showed inverse trends in drug susceptibility over time. K. pneumoniae susceptibility to fluoroquinolones increased by 5% between 2008 and 2018 (P < .05). In contrast, E. coli susceptibility declined during the same period to ceftriaxone (6%), gentamicin (4%), and fluoroquinolones (4%) (P < .05). When compared to Boston hospitals, E. coli isolates from hospitals in other regions had a >4% higher proportion of susceptibility to ciprofloxacin and a >3% higher proportion of susceptibility to ceftriaxone (P < .05). Isolates of K. pneumoniae had higher susceptibility to ciprofloxacin (>3%) and ceftriaxone (>1.5%) in all regions when compared to Boston hospitals (P < .05). Conclusions: Cumulative antibiograms can be used to monitor antimicrobial resistance, to discern regional and facility differences, and to detect changes in trends. Furthermore, because the number of years that hospitals contributed reports to the state-level aggregate had no significant influence on susceptibility trends, other states should not be discouraged by incomplete hospital compliance.

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National, State, and Local Public Health Surveillance Systems

Concepts and Methods in Infectious Disease Surveillance ◽

10.1002/9781118928646.ch3 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 14-25 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ruth A. Jajosky ◽

Jennifer Ward

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Public Health Surveillance ◽

Health Surveillance ◽

Surveillance Systems ◽

National State ◽

Local Public Health ◽

State And Local

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Collaborative Public Health Surveillance Strategies to Address Local Health Needs

International Journal for Population Data Science ◽

10.23889/ijpds.v3i4.844 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Norma Padron

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Health Care Delivery ◽

Public Health Surveillance ◽

Care Delivery ◽

The United States ◽

Delivery Systems ◽

Health Surveillance ◽

Local Health ◽

Health Care Delivery Systems

IntroductionThis presentation will review the current strategies being used by health care delivery systems across the US to incorporate via linkage, publicly available data assets. The discussion will focus on lessons learned with a specific emphasis of collaborations between health systems to address the opioid crisis. Objectives and ApproachTo review ongoing strategies to incorporate local, publicly available data assets to clinical data assets that health systems have for purposes of collaborations with public health surveillance. The emphasis of the discussion presented will be in the data strategies that local health departments and health care delivery systems have used to address the opioid crisis in the US. This presentation will propose strategies to be explored and bring forth concerns about data fairness, accountability and transparency when collaborations for public health surveillance are in place. ResultsThe presentation will discuss the experiences learned in specific regions in the United States. The main results will center around assessing the effectiveness of current strategies to share and analyze data across health care delivery systems and local agencies and government partners. The lessons learned of what works and what hasn't will be discussed in light of the ongoing epidemic of opioid use and drug overdose deaths in the United States. Finally the presentation will present strategies that could be explored for collaborative public health surveillance that address issues and concers of fairness, accountability and transparency. Conclusion/ImplicationsThe implications of this report and presentation is that ongoing data linkage and sharing strategies have been -for the most part- insufficient to enable delivery systems and local public health departments and government address rising epidemiological concerns. The proposed strategies complement what is being done and advance data-driven public health

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