5235 Department of Health and Human Performance, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA.
12330 Department of Public Health, University of Texas School of Human Ecology, Austin, TX, USA.
Public Health Rep. 2022 Jul-Aug;137(4):679-686. doi: 10.1177/00333549211009490. Epub 2021 Apr 30.
The objective of this study was to characterize the changes in timeliness and completeness of disease case reporting in Texas in response to an increasing number of foodborne illnesses and high-consequence infectious disease investigations and the Texas Department of State Health Services' new state-funded epidemiologist (SFE) program.
We extracted electronic disease case reporting data on 42 conditions from 2012 through 2016 in all local health department (LHD) jurisdictions. We analyzed data on median time for processing reports and percentage of complete reports across time and between SFE and non-SFE jurisdictions using Mann-Whitney tests and scores.
The median time of processing improved from 13 days to 10 days from 2012 to 2016, and the percentage of disease case reports that were complete improved from 19.6% to 27.7%. Most reports were for foodborne illnesses; both timeliness (11 to 7 days) and completeness (20.9% to 23.5%) improved for these reports.
Disease reporting improvements in timeliness and completeness were associated with the SFE program and its enhancement of epidemiologic capacity. SFEs were shown to improve surveillance metrics in LHDs, even in jurisdictions with a high volume of case reports. Adding epidemiologist positions in LHDs produces a tangible outcome of improved disease surveillance.
本研究旨在描述德克萨斯州疾病报告的及时性和完整性的变化，原因是该州食源性疾病和高后果传染病调查数量不断增加，以及德克萨斯州州立卫生服务部（DSHS）新设立的州立流行病学家（SFE）项目。
我们从 2012 年至 2016 年期间从所有地方卫生部门（LHD）辖区提取了 42 种疾病的电子疾病报告数据。我们使用 Mann-Whitney U 检验和 Kappa 分数分析了报告处理中位数时间和报告完整性百分比随时间的变化以及 SFE 和非 SFE 辖区之间的差异。
报告处理的中位数时间从 2012 年的 13 天缩短至 2016 年的 10 天，完整报告的比例从 19.6%提高到 27.7%。大多数报告是食源性疾病；这些报告的及时性（从 11 天到 7 天）和完整性（从 20.9%到 23.5%）都有所改善。
SFE 项目及其对流行病学能力的增强与及时性和完整性的疾病报告改进有关。SFE 被证明可以改善 LHD 的监测指标，即使在报告数量较高的辖区也是如此。在 LHD 中增加流行病学家职位可以产生改善疾病监测的切实成果。
