Program objective

In its 1994 monograph, Addressing Emerging Infectious Disease Threats – A Prevention Strategy for the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called for the establishment of provider-based Emerging Infections Sentinel Networks (EISNs) to monitor and evaluate conditions that are not covered by health department surveillance and that are likely to be seen by specific kinds of health providers. There are currently three provider-based networks established through CDC’s EISN cooperative agreement programs: 1) Surveillance network of infectious disease specialists, 2) Global surveillance network of travel medicine clinics, and 3) Emergency department-based network of academically affiliated emergency departments for research on emerging infectious diseases. The first two networks (infectious disease specialists and travel medicine clinics) are non-research programs, and the third network (academically affiliated EDs) is a research program. These networks contribute to surveillance for emerging infectious diseases, including drug resistant, foodborne and waterborne, and vaccine-preventable or potentially vaccine-preventable diseases, and enhance information exchange leading to early identification of and response to trends and outbreaks. Objectives for the provider-based sentinel networks include the following: - To support linked groups of participating individuals or organizations in monitoring a variety of infectious disease problems and enhancing communication and collaboration among network members and the public health community; - To serve as readily accessible mechanisms to address urgent public health infectious disease problems rapidly; and - To improve understanding of specific public health issues, including, but not limited to, international travel, and enhance preparedness to meet new infectious disease threats among domestic and globally mobile populations. Additional objectives for the "research" EISN include: - To focus studies on the most important issues to be addressed by participating hospital EDs and CDC; and - To estimate the community burden of diseases.