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Review
. 2022 Nov;16(6):965-974.
doi: 10.1111/irv.13037. Epub 2022 Sep 8.

Influenza surveillance systems using traditional and alternative sources of data: A scoping review

Aspen Hammond  1 , John J Kim  1   2 , Holly Sadler  1 , Katelijn Vandemaele  1
Affiliations
Review

Influenza surveillance systems using traditional and alternative sources of data: A scoping review

Aspen Hammond et al. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2022 Nov.

Abstract

Objective: While the World Health Organization's recommendation of syndromic sentinel surveillance for influenza is an efficient method to collect high-quality data, limitations exist. Aligned with the Research Recommendation 1.1.2 of the WHO Public Health Research Agenda for Influenza-to identify reliable complementary influenza surveillance systems which provide real-time estimates of influenza activity-we performed a scoping review to map the extent and nature of published literature on the use of non-traditional sources of syndromic surveillance data for influenza.

Methods: We searched three electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus) for articles in English, French, and Spanish, published between January 1 2007 and January 28 2022. Studies were included if they directly compared at least one non-traditional with a traditional influenza surveillance system in terms of correlation in activity or timeliness.

Findings: We retrieved 823 articles of which 57 were included for analysis. Fifteen articles considered electronic health records (EHR), 11 participatory surveillance, 10 online searches and webpage traffic, seven Twitter, five absenteeism, four telephone health lines, three medication sales, two media reporting, and five looked at other miscellaneous sources of data. Several articles considered more than one non-traditional surveillance method.

Conclusion: We identified eight categories and a miscellaneous group of non-traditional influenza surveillance systems with varying levels of evidence on timeliness and correlation to traditional surveillance systems. Analyses of EHR and participatory surveillance systems appeared to have the most agreement on timeliness and correlation to traditional systems. Studies suggested non-traditional surveillance systems as complements rather than replacements to traditional systems.

Keywords: correlation; influenza; scoping review; surveillance; syndromic; timeliness.

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Conflict of interest statement

JK is currently an employee of Merck Canada Inc where they receive a salary and own stocks in the following pharmaceutical companies: Pfizer Inc and Eli Lilly. All authors confirm that they did not have any conflicts of interest at the time of their contribution to this work.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Number of articles by year of publication
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Number of articles by years in period of study
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Alternative surveillance systems by data source and publication year. As several articles address multiple data source categories, the number of surveillance systems is different to the total number of articles and sums to 62.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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