Abstract
The Early Aberration Reporting System (EARS) was first developed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention US CDC. Current EARS system development and research activities are supported by the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program (Hutwagner et al., 2003). EARS provides national, state, and local health departments with several alternative aberration detection methods to analyze and visualize public health surveillance data for syndromic surveillance (Figure 12-1). As of mid 2006, approximately 90 city, county, and state public health offices, in addition to some international offices, use EARS to assist in the early identification of outbreaks of disease and bioterrorism events (CDC, 2006a; Hutwagner et al., 2003). The National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Program currently provides technical support and research and development for EARS activities (Hutwagner et al., 2003).
EARS has already identified some outbreaks. In one instance, a state health official thought they had a Shigella outbreak. After running EARS on their notifiable diseases, the outbreak was confirmed and they were able to easily identify the county involved. EARS has also linked an increase in asthma cases to an increase in the ozone level that was not large enough to trigger an ozone alarm. Another site using EARS identified the beginning of the West Nile Virus season and implemented spraying for mosquitoes.
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Important readings:
CDC (2006). “Early Aberration Reporting System.” http://www.bt.cdc.gov/surveillance/ears/.
Hutwagner, L., W. Thompson, et al. (2003). “The Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Early Aberration Reporting System (EARS).” Journal of Urban Health, 80(2 suppl 1), pp 89–96.
Zhu, Y., W. Wang, et al. (2005). “Initial Evaluation of the Early Aberration Reporting System - Florida.” Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report (CDC), 54(Suppl), pp 123–130.
CDC (2006). “Injury and Illness Surveillance in Hospitals and Acute-Care Facilities After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans Area, Louisiana, September 25-October 15, 2005.” Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report (CDC).
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References
CDC. 2006a. "Early Aberration Reporting System." Retrieved Feb 15, 2006, from http://www.bt.cdc.gov/surveillance/ears/
Hutwagner L, Thompson W, Seeman GM, and T, T. 2003. "The Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Early Aberration Reporting System (EARS)," J Urban Health (80(2 suppl 1)), pp. 89–96.
Hutwagner, L., Browne, T., Seeman, G.M., and Fleischauer, A.T. 2005a. "Comparing Aberration Detection Methods with Simulated Data," Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet] (11), pp. 314–316.
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Chen, H., Zeng, D., Yan, P. (2010). EARS. In: Infectious Disease Informatics. Integrated Series in Information Systems, vol 21. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1278-7_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1278-7_12
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