CDC to improve school closure tracking system

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to  upgrade the system it uses to track school closings in order to keep better tabs on the spread of the H1N1 swine flu virus.

With the monitoring system, CDC, together with the Education Department, aim to generate real-time, national summary data on the number of school closings caused by the virus and the number of students and teachers affected.

During the H1N1 outbreak earlier in the spring, CDC and Education put in place a system to collect data about school closings. However, the system did not standardize the report information or provide sufficient detail, “making it difficult to monitor reports of school dismissals and to gauge the impact of the outbreak,” CDC said.

The improved system would provide a continuing view of the school districts that are most hard hit by the flu, CDC said in a notice in today’s Federal Register. CDC also said it intends to collect the data over the long term and not just during the current outbreak to have a comprehensive record of flu effects.

Schools, school districts and local public health agencies will submit common data elements to CDC, including name and zip code of school district, date of dismissal and reopening.

“CDC will use the summary data to fully understand how schools are responding to CDC community guidance among schools, students, household contacts and for overall awareness of the impact of influenza outbreaks on school systems and communities,” CDC said in the notice.

Illness among school-aged students in many states and cities resulted in at least 1,351 schools closing for at least one day due to rapidly increasing absenteeism among students and staff. The school closures affected at least 824,966 students and 53,217 teachers, CDC said.

The notice is online.

Information about the school monitoring system also is online.