Simulated Anthrax Epidemic Data for Syndromic Surveillance System Evaluation

A simulation model designed by David L. Buckeridge of Stanford Medicine to evaluate syndromic surveillance systems. The model injects simulated anthrax outbreaks into real background data, accounting for spatial mobility and disease-agent characteristics. It comprises four components: agent dispersion, infection, disease and behavior, and data source.

Use Cases

• Evaluating outbreak detection sensitivity based on simulated disease progression and health-services utilization.
• Testing spatial surveillance algorithms based on simulated agent dispersion via a Gaussian plume model.
• Assessing the impact of demographic covariates and mobility patterns on infection spread within the simulation.
• Validating syndromic data source integration methods using generated records inserted into background data.

Strengths

• Model explicitly incorporates knowledge of inhalational anthrax from available literature.
• Design addresses limitations of existing approaches by accounting for spatial mobility.
• Model enables sensitivity analyses based on uncertain disease-agent characteristics.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are 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

David L. Buckeridge, Stanford Medicine

Collection Method

Designed simulation model for injecting outbreaks into background data.