Resources for Conducting Animal Health Surveillance
Surveillance and Data Standards
Developing Animal Health Surveillance Plans
Evaluating Animal Health Surveillance Systems
Software and Documentation for Surveillance Applications
Surveillance and Data Standards
- Surveillance and Data Standards for USDA APHIS Veterinary Services (version 1.0, pdf, July 2006). Appendices should be downloaded separately:
- Appendix A. Disease/Condition Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix B. Species Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix C. Species - Breed Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix D. Animal Identification Type Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix E. Gender Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix F. Subject Use/Function Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix G. Sample Type Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix H. Result Interpretation Codes
- Appendix I. Premises Type Codes
- Appendix J. Premises Status Codes (pdf, July 2006)
- Appendix K. Coordinate Type Codes for Geographic Data Elements
- Appendix L. Validation Codes for Geographic Data Elements
- Appendix M. Match Source Codes for Geographic Data Elements (pdf, July 2006)
- Acronyms used in this document (pdf, July 2006)
Developing Animal Health Surveillance Plans
- Guidelines for Developing Animal Health Surveillance Plans (pdf, 10/1/06)
- Examples of animal health surveillance plans:
- Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Surveillance Plan (pdf, 3/2004). Note: readers may also be interested in Harvard University's comments (pdf, 3/2004) on this surveillance plan.
- Classical Swine Fever (CSF) Surveillance Plan (pdf, 11/2005). This is part of the CSF surveillance procedure manual, which is available on the CSF Monitoring & Surveillance Web site.
Evaluating Animal Health Surveillance Systems
Surveillance system evaluation is the systematic collection and review of information about a surveillance system undertaken to assess the extent to which the system fulfills its stated objectives and meets accepted surveillance standards. Within Veterinary Services, the surveillance system evaluation process identifies program strengths and areas for improvement, and evaluation findings are intended to be a tool to improve program quality and efficiency, to facilitate integration of the system into the National Animal Health Surveillance system, and to identify the system’s contributions relative to the VS Strategic Plan. The Surveillance and Data Standards for USDA APHIS Veterinary Services are used as a benchmark for the evaluation process.
Software and Documentation for Surveillance Applications
- Monte-Carlo approaches for determining power and sample size in low-prevalence applications: software module (.txt file, updated 5/14/07)
Many epidemiological investigations focus on comparing the prevalence of a disease in an exposed and unexposed population, where the prevalence is low in both populations. Determination of the necessary sample size from each population requires consideration of the power to detect biologically relevant differences in the prevalence. Many of the existing solutions to this problem assume the distribution of the test statistic approaches a Normal distribution. However, in low-prevalence applications, this is rarely the case. This software module implements a Monte Carlo-based approach to determining the sample size from each population. A more detailed description can be found in: Williams, M. S., Ebel E. D., and Wagner, B. A. 2007. Monte-Carlo approaches for determining power and sample size in low-prevalence applications. Preventative Veterinary Medicine. In press.