Prospective Spatio-Temporal and Temporal Cluster Detection by Salmonella Serotype

To improve (Salmonella) cluster detection by serotype in New York City (NYC), we developed an automated daily process to assign serotypes to (Salmonella) cases. We implemented daily analyses using the prospective space-time permutation scan statistic in SaTScan to detect spatio-tempOral and purely tempOral clusters. In 14 weeks of spatio-tempOral analyses, 7 clusters were identified, and in 4 weeks of purely tempOral analyses, 5 clusters were identified. These methods are useful complements to the NYC (Salmonella) surveillance system and could be adopted by other health departments for primary or confirmatory cluster detection.