The Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-Based Epidemics (ESSENCE II) is a prototype public health surveillance system. It captures data in multiple formats, parses text into syndrome groupings, and applies outbreak-detection algorithms. The system was evaluated by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory according to a CDC framework.
Use Cases
- Evaluating syndromic surveillance system performance based on the CDC framework described in the paper.
- Developing temporal detection algorithms for health events based on the system's described capabilities.
- Implementing spatio-temporal outbreak detection methods based on the algorithms applied by ESSENCE II.
- Parsing and categorizing unstructured health indicator text into syndrome groupings based on the system's methodology.
Strengths
- The system applies multiple temporal and spatio-temporal outbreak-detection algorithms.
- During a DARPA evaluation, detection algorithms had a median delay of 1 day after the earliest possible detection opportunity.
- The system captures and analyzes data in multiple formats.
Limitations
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
Provenance
- Source
- Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
- Collection Method
- Prototype syndromic surveillance system capturing and analyzing public health indicators.