Journal Article Epublish 1 citation
PubMed: 39857065 DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics15020181
Data from Emergency Medical Service Activities: A Novel Approach to Monitoring COVID-19 and Other Infectious Diseases.
Diagnostics (Basel) 15(2)
Authors: Daniele Del Re, Luigi Palla, Paolo Meridiani, Livia Soffi, Michele Tancredi Loiudice, Martina Antinozzi, Maria Sofia Cattaruzza
Affiliations
- Department of Physics, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
- Department of Public Health and Infectious Diseases, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
- INFN Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma, 00146 Rome, Italy.
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Abstract
: Italy, particularly the northern region of Lombardy, has experienced very high rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Several indicators, i.e., the number of new positive cases, deaths and hospitalizations, have been used to monitor virus spread, but all suffer from biases. The aim of this study was to evaluate an alternative data source from Emergency Medical Service (EMS) activities for COVID-19 monitoring. : Calls to the emergency number (112) in Lombardy (years 2015-2022) were studied and their overlap with the COVID-19 pandemic, influenza and official mortality peaks were evaluated. Modeling it as a counting process, a specific cause contribution (i.e., COVID-19 symptoms, the "signal") was identified and enucleated from all other contributions (the "background"), and the latter was subtracted from the total observed number of calls using statistical methods for excess event estimation. : A total of 6,094,502 records were analyzed and filtered for respiratory and cardiological symptoms to identify potential COVID-19 patients, yielding 742,852 relevant records. Results show that EMS data mirrored the time series of cases or deaths in Lombardy, with good agreement also being found with seasonal flu outbreaks. : This novel approach, combined with a machine learning predictive approach, could be a powerful public health tool to signal the start of disease outbreaks and monitor the spread of infectious diseases.
MeSH
Disease Outbreaks, Emergencies, Signs And Symptoms, Covid-19, Pandemics, Records, Communicable Diseases, Emergency Medical Services