Published on in Vol 5, No 1 (2013):

Use of Control Bar Matrix for Outbreak Detection in Syndromic Surveillance System

Use of Control Bar Matrix for Outbreak Detection in Syndromic Surveillance System

Use of Control Bar Matrix for Outbreak Detection in Syndromic Surveillance System

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This study aims to develop and test the method of control bar matrix for outbreak detection in a syndromic surveillance system (ISSC) of rural China. From the ISSC database, we extracted the historical daily number of outpatients with fever symptom reported in a township hospital surveillance unit from August 1st to December 31st as baseline data. Six different control bar algorithms (the matrix) were simultaneously run among baseline data to simulate the real-time detection. Findings showed that control bar matrix could label the alarms into hierarchical warning levels, which facilitated the signal verification and decision making in syndromic surveillance system.