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Monitoring Emergency Department Visits From Puerto Rico in the Aftermath of Hurricane Maria Using Syndromic Surveillance – New York City, 2017

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Priscilla W. Wong  and
Hilary B. Parton
Priscilla W. Wong*
Affiliation:
Bureau of Communicable Disease, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, New York
Hilary B. Parton
Affiliation:
Bureau of Communicable Disease, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Long Island City, New York
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Priscilla Wong, 90 Church Street, New York, NY 10007 (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Abstract

Objective:

Syndromic surveillance has been useful for routine surveillance on a variety of health outcomes and for informing situational awareness during public health emergencies. Following the landfall of Hurricane Maria in 2017, the New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) implemented an enhanced syndromic surveillance system to characterize related emergency department (ED) visits.

Methods:

ED visits with any mention of specific key words (“Puerto,” “Rico,” “hurricane,” “Maria”) in the ED chief complaint or Puerto Rico patient home Zip Code were identified from the DOHMH syndromic surveillance system in the 8-week window leading up to and following landfall. Visit volume comparisons pre- and post-Hurricane Maria were performed using Fisher’s exact test.

Results:

Analyses identified an overall increase in NYC ED utilization relating to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria landfall. In particular, there was a small but significant increase in visits involving a medication refill or essential medical equipment. Visits for other outcomes, such as mental illness, also increased, but the differences were not statistically significant.

Conclusions:

Gaining this situational awareness of medical service use was informative following Hurricane Maria, and, following any natural disaster, the same surveillance methods could be easily established to aid an effective emergency response.

Keywords

disasterhurricanePuerto Ricosituational awarenesssyndromic surveillance
Type
Brief Report
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 44 - 48
Copyright
© 2019 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc.

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