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A myESSENCE dashboard example using simulated data.

Health Surveillance

Our Contribution

APL’s leadership in electronic disease surveillance, both at home and abroad, is making a difference on the front lines of protecting the health of a population. Many state and local health departments have employed APL’s Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics (ESSENCE). With the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopting ESSENCE as an analysis and visualization tool for the National Syndromic Surveillance Program—and using it to track developing situations from the opioid crisis to Zika outbreaks—we are laying the groundwork for a fully integrated national surveillance picture. Internationally, with our Suite for Automated Global Electronic bioSurveillance (SAGES), nations with limited resources are gaining capacity to conduct disease surveillance—a capability critical to providing early warnings for their populations as well as enhancing the safety of forward-deployed U.S. military personnel.

ESSENCE, the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics

As the world grapples with the novel coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, and the United States works to ramp up testing and mitigation capabilities, a public health electronic surveillance tool developed by Johns Hopkins APL is helping to fill gaps by tracking the virus’ spread symptomatically.

Twenty-one local and state public health departments, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense, are currently employing the Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community-based Epidemics, or ESSENCE, to monitor trends, look for flashpoints and spot possible COVID-19 cases for intervention.

Local governments are able to use this data to help advise them in taking measures to increase social distancing and arrest the spread of the virus, such as the stay-at-home and shelter-in-place orders currently enacted in multiple states nationwide, the closings of schools and nonessential businesses, and strict limits on gatherings of any kind.

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