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Sharing NC DETECT Data with Non-NC DETECT Users

The emergency department (ED) data in NC DETECT are collected by the NC Division of Public Health Communicable Disease Branch under NC State Statute. Please keep confidentiality in mind when sharing NC DETECT information with partners outside of the health department. Line listing information should not be shared. Please follow these guidelines:

  1. Counts >=5 do not need to be suppressed for any time period or stratification; e.g. age group, sex, race, etc.
  2. When counts are <5:
    1. You may share annual counts for a given indicator in your county, with no suppression needed. For example, you may share the number of opioid overdoses in your county by year, even if the annual count is <5.
    2. Counts <5 for a county or region in a time period under one year may be released in graphs or tables when at least 500 ED visits occurred in the county or region during that time period. If fewer than 500 ED visits occurred, counts from 1-4 must be suppressed in publicly available documents or handouts that are given to meeting participants; in these cases, please use “<5” to indicate counts less than 5 and 0 to indicate counts of zero.
    3. Counts <5 for a stratification such as age group, race, sex, etc. for any time period (either a year or less than a year) may be released in graphs or tables when at least 500 ED visits occurred within that stratification during the time period being reported. However, if fewer than 500 ED visits occurred, counts from 1-4 must be suppressed in publicly available documents or handouts that are given to meeting participants; in these cases, please use “<5” to indicate counts less than 5 and 0 to indicate counts of zero.
  3. At all times, please attribute the data to NC DETECT using the following disclaimer:

NC DETECT is a statewide public health syndromic surveillance system, funded by the NC Division of Public Health (NC DPH) Federal Public Health Emergency Preparedness Grant and managed through collaboration between NC DPH and the UNC-CH Department of Emergency Medicine’s Carolina Center for Health Informatics. The NC DETECT Data Oversight Committee is not responsible for the scientific validity or accuracy of methodology, results, statistical analyses, or conclusions presented.

Please contact ncdetect@listserv.med.unc.edu with any questions regarding this policy.

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