A new surveillance indicator identifying optimal timeliness and accuracy: application to the Korean National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System for 2001–2007
- 22 February 2013
- journal article
- surveillance
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Epidemiology and Infection
- Vol. 141 (12), 2634-2643
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0950268812002956
Abstract
Although immediate notification of a case is crucial for epidemic control, clinicians may delay notification due to uncertainties in diagnosis, reflecting a trade-off between timeliness and the accuracy of surveillance. We assessed this trade-off for four epidemic-prone diseases that require immediate notification of suspected cases: shigellosis, typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and cholera in the Korean National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System data for 2001–2007. Timeliness was measured as the time to registration (TR), being the time interval from symptom onset to notification by the clinician to the local public health centre. We introduced a new index, ‘time-accuracy trade-off ratio’ to indicate time saved by clinical vs. laboratory-based notifications. Clinical notifications comprised 34·4% of total notifications, and these showed a shorter median TR than laboratory-based notifications (1–4 days). The trade-off ratio was greatest for shigellosis (3·3 days), and smallest for typhoid fever (0·6 days). A higher trade-off ratio provides stronger evidence for clinical notification without waiting for laboratory confirmation.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Timeliness of national notifiable diseases surveillance system in Korea: a cross-sectional studyBMC Public Health, 2009
- General practitioner notifications of gastroenteritis and food poisoning: cause for concernJournal of Public Health, 2007
- High sensitivity for tuberculosis in a national integrated surveillance system in FinlandEurosurveillance, 2005
- Timeliness of case reporting in the Swedish statutory surveillance of communicable diseases 1998–2002Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2004
- Completeness of Notifiable Infectious Disease Reporting in the United States: An Analytical Literature ReviewAmerican Journal of Epidemiology, 2002
- Surveillance of hepatitis B: an example of a vaccine preventable diseaseVaccine, 1998
- Incompleteness of statutory notification of bacterial gastro-intestinal infectionPublic Health, 1997
- Timeliness of national reporting of communicable diseases: the experience of the National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance.American Journal of Public Health, 1991