A rapidly deployed, interactive, online visualization system to support fatality management during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic

Abstract Objective To create an online visualization to support fatality management in North Carolina. Materials and Methods A web application aggregates online datasets for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection rates and morgue utilization. The data are visualized through an interactive, online dashboard. Results The web application was shared with state and local public health officials across North Carolina. Users could adjust interactive maps and other statistical charts to view live reports of metrics at multiple aggregation levels (eg, county or region). The application also provides access to detailed tabular data for individual facilities. Discussion Stakeholders found this tool helpful for providing situational awareness of capacity, hotspots, and utilization fluctuations. Timely reporting of facility and county data were key, and future work can help streamline the data collection process. There is potential to generalize the technology to other use cases. Conclusions This dashboard facilitates fatality management by visualizing county and regional aggregate statistics in North Carolina.

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Controlling Tuberculosis in the United States: Use of Isolation and Other Measures Throughout the Country

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness ◽

10.1017/dmp.2016.138 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 337-342 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Rebecca Katz ◽

Andrea Vaught

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Community Support ◽

The United States ◽

Health Departments ◽

Local Public Health ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Public Health Officials ◽

State And Local ◽

Evidentiary Standards ◽

Depth Interviews

AbstractObjectivesWe sought to better understand the tools used by public health officials in the control of tuberculosis (TB).MethodsWe conducted a series of in-depth interviews with public health officials at the local, state, and federal levels to better understand how health departments around the country use isolation measures to control TB.ResultsState and local public health officials’ use of social distancing tools in infection control varies widely, particularly in response to handling noncompliant patients. Judicial and community support, in addition to financial resources, impacted the incentives and enablers used to maintain isolation of infectious TB patients.ConclusionsInstituting social distancing requires authorities and resources and can be impacted by evidentiary standards, risk assessments, political will, and community support. Awareness of these factors, as well as knowledge of state and local uses of social distancing measures, is essential to understanding what actions are most likely to be instituted during a public health emergency and to target interventions to better prepare health departments to utilize the best available tools necessary to control the spread of disease. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:337–342)

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Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic among the Amish of Northern Indiana

The Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities ◽

10.18061/jpac.v1i2.8099 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 126-131

Author(s):

Victor E. Stoltzfus

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

At Risk ◽

Medical Science ◽

Sources Of Information ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Local Public Health ◽

College Administrator ◽

Public Health Officials ◽

State And Local

Retired sociologist and college administrator Victor Stoltzfus reflects on a series of meetings in 2020 between leaders of the large Elkhart-LaGrange Amish settlement and state and local public health officials seeking to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Multiple sources of information, some of questionable provenance, worked against the reception and application of public health directives, as did the decentralized polity of the Amish church. The authority of medical science is not absolute in Amish circles and the Amish relationship with government includes elements of both obedience and distrust. The generally positive reputation the Amish enjoy in the wider public may be at risk as some non-Amish neighbors are dismayed by half-hearted Amish efforts to slow the spread of the pandemic. Stoltzfus concludes by noting the inconsistent mitigation practices on the part of the surrounding non-Amish population in northern Indiana.

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From 5Vs to 6Cs: Operationalizing Epidemic Data Management with COVID-19 Surveillance

10.1101/2020.10.27.20220830 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Akhil Sai Peddireddy ◽

Dawen Xie ◽

Pramod Patil ◽

Mandy L. Wilson ◽

Dustin Machi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Disease Surveillance ◽

Web Application ◽

Data Science ◽

Surveillance Data ◽

Current Status ◽

Federal State ◽

Multiple Time ◽

Local Public Health ◽

State And Local

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront an unprecedented need for experts, as well as citizens, to visualize spatio-temporal disease surveillance data. Web application dashboards were quickly developed to fill this gap, including those built by JHU, WHO, and CDC, but all of these dashboards supported a particular niche view of the pandemic (ie, current status or specific regions). In this paper1, we describe our work developing our own COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard, available at https://nssac.bii.virginia.edu/covid-19/dashboard/, which offers a universal view of the pandemic while also allowing users to focus on the details that interest them. From the beginning, our goal was to provide a simple visual way to compare, organize, and track near-real-time surveillance data as the pandemic progresses. Our dashboard includes a number of advanced features for zooming, filtering, categorizing and visualizing multiple time series on a single canvas. In developing this dashboard, we have also identified 6 key metrics we call the 6Cs standard which we propose as a standard for the design and evaluation of real-time epidemic science dashboards. Our dashboard was one of the first released to the public, and remains one of the most visited and highly used. Our group uses it to support federal, state and local public health authorities, and it is used by people worldwide to track the pandemic evolution, build their own dashboards, and support their organizations as they plan their responses to the pandemic. We illustrate the utility of our dashboard by describing how it can be used to support data story-telling – an important emerging area in data science.

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The Evolution of the Healthy Brain Initiative

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2542 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 720-720

Author(s):

Lisa McGuire

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Population Based ◽

Public Health Issue ◽

Dementia Caregivers ◽

Local Public Health ◽

Success Stories ◽

Road Map ◽

Indian Country ◽

State And Local ◽

Map Series

Abstract The Healthy Brain Initiative (HBI) seeks to advance public health awareness of and action on ADRD as a public health issue. The HBI Road Map Series, State and Local Public Health Partnerships to Address Dementia: The 2018–2023 Road Map (S&L RM) and Road Map for Indian Country (RMIC), provide the public health with concrete steps to respond to the growing burden of ADRD in communities, consistent with the aim of the Building Our Largest Dementia (BOLD) Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act (P.L. 115-406). This series of RMs for state, local, and tribal public health provide flexible menus of actions to address cognitive health, including ADRD, and support for dementia caregivers with population-based approaches. This session will describe how the initiative evolved over the past 15 years including policy and implementation success stories.

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State and Local Public Health Department Healthcare Outbreak Response Capacity Self-Assessment—United States 2016

Open Forum Infectious Diseases ◽

10.1093/ofid/ofx163.307 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (suppl_1) ◽

pp. S172-S172

Author(s):

Matthew Crist ◽

Steven Franklin ◽

Kathy Seiber ◽

Joseph Perz

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

United States ◽

Health Department ◽

Public Health Department ◽

Outbreak Response ◽

Self Assessment ◽

Local Public Health ◽

Response Capacity ◽

State And Local ◽

Local Public Health Department

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EMS Knowledge and Skills in Rural North Carolina: A Comparison with the National EMS Education and Practice Blueprint

Prehospital and Disaster Medicine ◽

10.1017/s1049023x00043089 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 254-260 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Lawrence H. Brown ◽

Terry W. Copeland ◽

John E. Gough ◽

Herbert G. Garrison ◽

Kathleen A. Dunn

Keyword(s):

North Carolina ◽

Emergency Medical Services ◽

Medical Services ◽

Similar Action ◽

Knowledge And Skills ◽

Emergency Medical ◽

State And Local ◽

Ems Education ◽

National Emergency ◽

Eastern North Carolina

AbstractIntroduction:Many state and local emergency medical services (EMS) systems may wish to modify provider levels and their scope of practice to align their systems with the recommendations of the National Emergency Medical Services Education and Practice Blueprint. To determine any changes that may be needed in a typical EMS system, the knowledge and skills of EMS providers in one rural area of North Carolina were compared with the knowledge and skills recommended in the National Emergency Medical Services Education and Practice Blueprint.Methods:A survey listing 175 items of patient care-oriented knowledge and skills described in the National Emergency Medical Services Education and Practice Blueprint was developed. EMS providers from five rural eastern North Carolina counties were asked to identify on the survey those items of knowledge and skills they believed they possessed. The skills and knowledge selected by the respondents at the five different North Carolina levels of certification were compared with the knowledge and skills listed for comparable provider levels delineated by the National Emergency Medical Services Education and Practice Blueprint. The proportions of the recommended skills reported to be possessed by the respondents were compared to determine which North Carolina certification levels best correlate with the Blueprint.Results:One hundred forty-five EMS providers completed the survey. The proportion of recommended skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) ranked significantly lower than did the skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by respondents at other levels in five of the 10 Blueprint elements. The proportion of recommended skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by EMT-Defibrillator-level personnel ranked lower than did those reported to be possessed by respondents at other levels in seven of the 10 Blueprint elements. The proportion of recommended skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by EMT-Intermediates ranked lower than did those reported to be possessed by respondents at other levels in nine of the 10 Blueprint elements. The proportion of recommended skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by EMT-Advanced Intermediates ranked lower than were the skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by respondents at other levels in two of the 10 Blueprint elements. Finally, the proportion of recommended skills and knowledge reported to be possessed by EMT-Paramedics ranked lower than were those reported to be possessed by respondents at other levels in one of the 10 Blueprint elements.Conclusion:In North Carolina, combining the EMT and EMT-Defibrillator levels and eliminating the EMT-Intermediate level would create three levels of certification, which would be more consistent with levels recommended by the Blueprint. The results of this study should be considered in any effort to revise the levels of EMS certification in North Carolina and in planning the training curricula for bridging those levels. Other states may require similar action to align with the National Emergency Medical Services Education and Practice Blueprint.

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