Smartphone application-based school absenteeism reporting system for infectious disease surveillance in Hong Kong schools: abridged secondary publication
DKMI Ip, EYC Lau, BJ Cowling
School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
 
 
Smartphone application-based surveillance system is a feasible approach for infectious disease surveillance. Specific percentage of influenza-related sick leave may improve the surveillance performance of non-specific all-cause absent rate in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value. Epidemic peaks of influenza season as reflected by the rescaled school absenteeism data precede those shown by traditional surveillance data by 2 to 3 weeks.