ESSENCE Expands in Response to Terrorist Threat

The Electronic Surveillance System for the Early Notification of Community Based Epidemics (ESSENCE)

was developed by the DoD Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System in response

to its mandate under Presidential Decision Directive NSTC 7 on emerging infections.  ESSENCE is a

developmental program that began approximately two years ago with a goal of establishing a sensitive,

specific, timely, standardized, and flexible health indicator surveillance system for the National Capital

Region (NCR).  ESSENCE has focused on the transparent acquisition, analysis, interpretation, and

dissemination via secure web site of daily Ambulatory Data System syndromic data from over 100 Military

Health System primary care clinics and emergency rooms in the NCR.  

In the wake of 11 September 2001, the need to track the health of all military personnel and beneficiaries

became apparent.  Within 10 days, ESSENCE expanded to include the processing of daily data from 121

Army, 110 Navy, 80 Air Force, and 2 Coast Guard installations worldwide (see maps).  To prioritize the

more than 2,700 health status graphs now generated daily, an alert roster is produced linked to detailed

graphs and maps.  To further track the health of military communities worldwide, the ESSENCE vision

has been expanded to include integration of civilian data (which is essential for optimal sensitivity and

representativeness in many DoD communities), more advanced mathematical and alert methodologies,

and the addition of other health indicators such as intensive care unit data, over the counter pharmacy

data, school absenteeism, and laboratory test requests.  ESSENCE II, as this expanded version of

ESSENCE is called, is a project of a DARPA funded consortium of Johns Hopkins University Applied

Physics Lab and Bloomberg School of Public Health, DoD GEIS, George Washington University

School of Public Health, Carnegie Mellon University, IBM, and Cycorp.

Geographic Locations Participating in ESSENCE

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