BACKGROUND: Hurricane Matthew impacted coastal and southern Georgia on October 7-8, 2016. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) used syndromic surveillance data to provide situational awareness to decision makers and to characterize illnesses, injuries, or exposures that warranted public health action immediately preceding and following Matthew’s arrival.
METHODS: DPH uses its State Electronic Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (SendSS) Syndromic Surveillance (SS) Module to collect, analyze and display results of data from 112 Emergency Departments (EDs) throughout Georgia (GA). Between October 5thand 10th, queries of chief complaint data, triage notes, and discharge diagnoses, were done using SendSS-SS and SAS/BASE to identify syndrome events indicating possible outbreaks, injuries or other exposures associated with Hurricane Matthew and coastal evacuations. Reviewed syndromes included GI, respiratory and injury. Analysis focused on ED patients residing in zip codes of 4 southern public health districts, as well as residents in the neighboring states of Florida (FL) and South Carolina (SC), who were assumed to be evacuees seeking care in GA. Daily summary/ reports were developed and disseminated.
RESULTS: Among residents in the Southern Districts of GA, Nausea-Vomit was the only syndrome that spiked in the aftermath of the event, with a peak on October 10th. Two clusters were detected: two children with diarrhea and an adult and three children with carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. The CO poisoning event prompted DPH to advise statewide Emergency Management leaders to remind constituents about safe generator use and to send public service announcements to the public through social media. Among FL residents, there were syndromic spikes in Injuries on October 7th and 8th. Among SC residents, spikes occurred in Injuries, Fever-flu, and Nausea Vomit on October 7th, 8th and 9th. Clusters detected among FL residents included patients with chief complaint of motor vehicle accident and patients with nausea and vomiting.
CONCLUSIONS: Syndromic surveillance data helped to characterize Hurricane Matthew’s impact on Georgia’s hospital emergency departments. Nausea/vomiting, injuries, and carbon monoxide poisoning were the most frequently reported/significant events. Opportunities for public health intervention were mainly in messaging, rather than outbreak or cluster investigations. Syndromic surveillance data was useful in providing near real time situational awareness for public health and emergency management leaders.