Harmonizing influenza primary-care surveillance in the United Kingdom: Piloting two methods to assess the timing and intensity of the seasonal epidemic across several general practice-based surveillance schemes

Epidemiology and Infection

Volumn 755, Issue , 2014, Pages

  Green, H K ^a   Charlett, A ^a   Moran Gilad, J ^a   Fleming, D ^b   Durnall, H ^b   Thomas, D Rh ^c   Cottrell, S ^c   Smyth, B ^d   Kearns, C ^d   Reynolds, A J ^e   Smith, G E ^a   Elliot, A J ^a   Ellis, J ^a   Zambon, M ^a   Watson, J M ^a   McMenamin, J ^e   Pebody, R G ^a  

^a PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND   (United Kingdom)

^b ROYAL COLLEGE OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS   (United Kingdom)

^c PUBLIC HEALTH WALES   (United Kingdom)

^d PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY   (United Kingdom)

^e HEALTH PROTECTION SCOTLAND   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Epidemiology; influenza; surveillance; threshold; United Kingdom

Indexed keywords

EID: 84938358292     PISSN: 09502688     EISSN: 14694409     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0950268814001757     Document Type: Review

References (32)

1. Public Health England. Real-time Syndromic Surveillance (http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/RealtimeSyndromicSurveillance/). Accessed 4 March 2014.
2. Health Protection Agency. HPA Weekly National Influenza Report (hhttp://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/InfectiousDiseases/InfectionsAZ/SeasonalInfluenza/EpidemiologicalData/03influsweeklyreportpdfonly/). Accessed 4 March 2014.
3. Department of Health. Seasonal flu plan: Winter 2011/12 (http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod-consum-dh/groups/dh-digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh-127088.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
4. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Oseltamivir, amantadine (review) and zanamivir for the prophylaxis of influenza (http://publications.nice.org.uk/oseltamivir-amantadine-review-and-zanamivir-for-theprophylaxis-of-influenza-ta158). Accessed 4 March 2014.
5. Fleming DM, et al. The duration and magnitude of influenza epidemics: a study of surveillance data from sentinel general practices in England, Wales and the Netherlands. European Journal of Epidemiology 1999; 15: 467-473.
6. Goddard NL, Kyncl J, Watson JM. Appropriateness of thresholds currently used to describe influenza activity in England. Communicable Disease and Public Health 2003; 6: 238-245.
7. Hine D. The 2009 Influenza Pandemic: an independent review of the UK response to the 2009 influenza pandemic (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
8. Department of Health. Pandemic influenza preparedness programme: Statistical Legacy Group - a report for the Chief Medical Officer (http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod-consum-dh/groups/dh-digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh-122754.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
9. United Kingdom Influenza Surveillance Harmonisation Short Life Working Group. Report 2010/11, July 2011, Health Protection Agency (internal publication).
10. Fleming D, Slottje P. Percentiles-based intensity levels, EISS Annual Meeting Malaga 9-11 May 2007 (https://www.euroflu.org/repository/documents/malaga-2007/1105/Epi/EISS-Malaga-2007-EPI-Pauline-Slottje-Quantified-Intensity-1-Percentiles-EpiClin.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
11. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Weekly influenza surveillance overview (WISO) (http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/healthtopics/seasonal-influenza/epidemiological-data/pages/weekly-influenza-surveillance-overview.aspx). Accessed 4 March 2014.
12. Vega T, et al. Influenza surveillance in Europe: establishing epidemic thresholds by the Moving Epidemic Method. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 2013; 7: 546-558.
13. Vega T, et al. Validation of the moving epidemic method for detecting influenza epidemics in Europe (http://www.euroflu.org/documents/eiss-poster-toronto-vega-lozano-et-al.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
14. Vega T, et al. Modelling influenza epidemic - can we detect the beginning and predict the intensity and duration? International Congress Series 2004; 1263: 281-283.
15. Zhao H, et al. A new laboratory-based surveillance system (Respiratory DataMart System) for influenza and other respiratory viruses in England: results and experience from 2009-2012. Eurosurveillance 2014; 19(3): pii=20680.
16. Health Protection Scotland. Reporting rates of influenza (flu) from General Practitioners in Scotland (http://www.documents.hps.scot.nhs.uk/respiratory/seasonalinfluenza/expanded-technical.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
17. ISO. Date and time format - ISO 8601 (http://www.iso.org/iso/iso8601). Accessed 4 March 2014.
18. Lozano Alonso JE. Mem: Moving Epidemics Method, R Package v. 1.2, 2012 (http://www.R-project.org).
19. rd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974.
20. Health Protection Agency. Surveillance of influenza and other respiratory pathogens in the UK October 2011-April 2012 (http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb-C/1317134705939). Accessed 4 March 2014.
21. Public Health England. Surveillance of influenza and other respiratory viruses, including novel respiratory viruses, in the United Kingdom: winter 2012/13 (http://www.hpa.org.uk/webc/HPAwebFile/HPAweb-C/1317139321787). Accessed 4 March 2014.
22. Health Protection Scotland. National influenza report (http://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/resp/influenzareports.aspx). Accessed 4 March 2014.
23. Tay EL, et al. Exploring a proposed WHO method to determine thresholds for seasonal influenza surveillance. PLoS ONE 2013; 8: e77244.
24. Conesa D, et al. Bayesian hierarchical Poisson model with a hidden Markov structure for the detection of influenza epidemic outbreaks. Statistical Methods in Medical Research. Published online: 25 August 2011. doi:10.1177/0962280211414853.
25. Steiner SH, et al. Detecting the start of an influenza outbreak using exponentially weighted moving average charts. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2010; 10: 37.
26. Closas P, Coma E, Méndez L. Sequential detection of influenza epidemics by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2012; 12: 112.
27. Tillet HE, Spencer IL. Influenza surveillance in England and Wales using routine statistics. Development of 'cusum' graphs to compare 12 previous winters and to monitor the 1980/81 winter. Journal of Hygiene (London) 1982; 88: 83-94.
28. Green HK, et al. Mortality attributable to influenza in England and Wales prior to, during and after the 2009 pandemic. PLoS ONE 2013; 8: e79360.
29. Goldstein E, Viboud C, Charu V, Lipsitch M. Improving the estimation of influenza-related mortality over a seasonal baseline. Epidemiology 2012; 23: 829-838.
30. Department of Health. National immunisation programme: planned changes for 2013 to 2014 (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment-data/file/193055/130429-Rotavirus-tripartite-letter-FINAL.pdf). Accessed 4 March 2014.
31. Public Health Agency Northern Ireland. Seasonal influenza (http://www.publichealth.hscni.net/directoratepublic-health/health-protection/seasonal-influenza). Accessed 10 January 2014.
32. Public Health Wales. Weekly influenza activity in Wales report (http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/page.cfm?orgid=457&pid=34338). Accessed 10 January 2014.