The purpose of disease surveillance is to record and predict the occurrence of diseases so that the harm caused by outbreak can be minimized. Also, we explore the contribution of certain factors to such circumstances via the disease surveillance system. Specifically, during the SARS or any infectious diseases epidemic, research methods were in demand for nearly real-time tracking of infectious measures. Motivated by the SARS data, we developed some methods, which allow the estimation of important parameters such as infection rates, removal rates and their ratios in order to monitor the effectiveness of control measures. Later, we also formed a team to conduct acute gastroenteritis (AGE) surveillance, to understand its disease burden. Some methodology work has also been done especially for cancer and infectious disease surveillance.

Additionally, infectious diseases usually involve spatial and temporal patterns associated with environmental factors. Statistical methods for analysis of high-dimensional data, such as a generalized scan statistics for detection of clusters and estimating equations for non-separable spatial-temporal data have been developed for disease surveillance. 

Surveillance for cancer and infectious disease

• Chien LC. ^†, Wu YJ. ^†, Hsiung CA., Wang LH. and Chang IS*. “Smoothed Lexis diagrams with applications to lung and breast cancer trends in Taiwan” Journal of the American Statistical Association 2015, 110(511):1000-1012
• Chen CJ, Wu FT, Huang YC, Chang WC, Wu HS, Wu CY, Lin JS, Huang FC, Hsiung CA* “Clinical and epidemiologic features of severe viral gastroenteritis in children: a three-year surveillance, multicentered study in Taiwan with partial rotavirus immunization” Medicine (Baltimore). 2015 Aug; 94(33):e1372.
• Chang WC, Yen C, Wu FT, Huang YC, Lin JS, Huang FC, Yu HT, Chi CL, Lin HY, Tate JE, Parashar UD, Wu HS, Hsiung CA*. “Effectiveness of 2 rotavirus vaccines against rotavirus disease in Taiwanese infants.” Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. 2014 Mar;33(3):e81-6.
• Chang WC, Yen C, Chi CL, Wu FT, Huang YC, Lin JS, Huang FC, Tate JE, Wu HS, Hsiung CA.* “Cost-effectiveness of rotavirus vaccination programs in Taiwan.” Vaccine. 2013 Nov 4;31(46):5458-65.

Spatial-temporal models for disease surveillance.

• Lin PS, Hsiung CA, Cheng CW. Analysis of non-separable spatiotemporal data with application to enterovirus study in Taiwan. Environmental and Ecological Statistics 2014; 21(4): 733-50.
• Lin PS. Generalized scan statistics for disease surveillance. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics 2014; 41(3): 791-808.
• Lin PS, Kung YH, Clayton M. Spatial scan statistics for detection of multiple clusters with arbitrary shapes. Biometrics 2016.