Introduction: Child care centers are vital hubs for monitoring pediatric respiratory and gastrointestinal illness transmission. The Michigan Child Care Related Infections Surveillance Program (MCRISP), established in 2013, is a key component of local public health surveillance. MCRISP captures symptoms often missed by traditional hospital and clinic-based biosurveillance. Child care providers (CCPs) submit illness reports, enabling enhanced local illness surveillance and improving communication through visual dashboards. MCRISP is a free-to-use and novel community-based biosurveillance and research tool. Methods: MCRISP collected daily illness reports from ~25 centers in Washtenaw County, Michigan, focusing on gastroenteritis, respiratory infections, and rashes. CCPs enter non-identifiable data categorized into four age groups: 0-12 months (infant), 13-35 months (toddler), 36-59 months (preschool), and 60 months and older (kindergarten/1st grade). Data from 2013 to 2024 were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Reports from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2024, were classified by symptoms and diagnoses into Gastrointestinal (GI), Respiratory, Rash, and Other illnesses. Seasonal trends and epidemic curves were evaluated based on illness counts to identify patterns and outbreaks. Results: Over 22,000 reports were analyzed across ten seasons. Preschool-aged children (35-59 months) were the highest reporting group (13,612 cases). Respiratory illnesses were most prevalent (16,568 reports), with viral cases comprising 10,521. GI illnesses accounted for 4,923 reports, while rashes totaled 1,392 cases. Certain respiratory conditions, typically treated with antibiotics, were reported 1,092 times. Confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases based on symptomatic children with positive family members totaled 578 cases (2020 to 2024). MCRISP’s early detection provided critical lead time for public health responses. MCRISP was leveraged for two national viral respiratory pathogen studies (influenza and COVID). Conclusion: Marking a decade of surveillance, MCRISP serves as an effective and novel platform for data collection and dissemination. MCRISP models community-based surveillance and provides an innovative tool for research, essential for moving public health preparedness forward.
Hashikawa et al. (Sun,) studied this question.