Suitable channels of human infected H7N9 avian influenza and other infectious disease surveillance for health risk communication in an Asian urban city

Background: The increasing human H7N9 influenza A infection confirmed cases in China since 2013 has attracted global attention. Disease surveillance helps situation awareness for policy makers making appropriate public health decisions. These systems need to be consulted and evaluated before implementation to achieve their maximum efficiencies. In this study, we aim to identify suitable channels for community disease surveillance and risk communication among different strata of an urban Chinese community.

Methods: A cross-sectional, population-based telephone survey study (n=1,000) was conducted for infectious disease outbreak behavioral response in Hong Kong in February 2014. Opinions and preference for infectious disease surveillance and obtaining disease information were collected and analyzed.

Results: Preliminary results of the pilot study showed the most preferred channels to obtain infectious disease information were from television (50%) and internet (16%). Younger age groups tended to use more internet (age 15-24, 33.3%; age 25-59, 12.9%; age >59, 0%). Most respondents (74%) thought there is a need to have official indices for reflecting health risk of infectious diseases activities. 60% showed their willingness to cooperate with local officials for infectious disease data collection if needed. Preferred channels for providing health information to officials for surveillance purposes were via internet (44%) and telephone (34%). The main study result will be available in March 2014.

Discussion: Community surveillance provides complementary information and risk communication channel for the current infectious disease surveillance systems. With the high coverage, high acceptability and timeliness of internet usage, more surveillance utilization via the internet can be considered. However this channel may not be suitable for all age groups. More research should be done on how to formulate robust indices to measure infectious disease risks in the community.