Using a hospital admission survey to determine rates of influenza-associated severe acute respiratory infections

Overview

The guide “How to use a hospital admission survey to determine rates of influenza-associated severe acute respiratory”, developed by the Influenza Division of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with WHO’s Global Influenza Programme, serves as a supplement to the WHO publication “A manual for estimating disease burden associated with seasonal influenza”. This guide provides public health officials with the tools to prepare and perform a hospital admission survey (HAS) to determine what proportion of the population living in a hospital’s catchment area seeks care at the sentinel site for a severe respiratory illness, compared with other admitting facilities in the area. The catchment population will serve as the denominator when calculating rates of influenza-associated hospitalizations for the hospital. Developed as an extension of the WHO manual, this HAS guide cites, where appropriate, relevant section numbers from the WHO manual.