Highlights
- CDC and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) hosted over 1,000 participants for the 2026 Syndromic Surveillance Symposium.
- Key themes of the event included enhanced respiratory illness surveillance, expanded applications of syndromic surveillance for non-communicable threats, and innovative approaches to local alerting and seasonal hazard monitoring.
- The symposium facilitated momentum toward more automated, timely, localized, and analytically sophisticated syndromic surveillance systems nationwide.
Background
CDC and CSTE held the sixth annual Syndromic Surveillance Symposium from February 10–12, 2026. The virtual event was open to any person or organization interested in advancing syndromic surveillance practice. There were 1,300 registered attendees, almost tripling the number of registered attendees from the first symposium in 2020. Many participants were members of the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) Community of Practice.
Symposium participants facilitated 29 sessions including a range of plenary, breakout, discussion, demonstration, training, and networking sessions. Participants could attend sessions tailored to their needs and experience levels — from 101 sessions to in-depth, expert discussions. Key event themes included enhanced respiratory illness surveillance (such as H5N1 and hospitalization monitoring), expanded applications of syndromic surveillance for non-communicable threats (such as substance use, violence, injury, and environmental hazards), and innovative approaches to local alerting and seasonal hazard monitoring.
Connecting the NSSP Community of Practice
Participants had in-depth discussions about surveillance gaps and potential syndromic surveillance solutions. For example, focused surveillance for neurologic complications of pediatric influenza does not exist in the United States, despite recent increases in pediatric, influenza-related deaths. To address this, the County of Santa Clara highlighted an evidence-based surveillance approach using CDC's ESSENCE platform — a resource available to the entire NSSP Community of Practice. This instance is one example of how syndromic approaches are useful for monitoring emerging threats.
NSSP Community of Practice members presented or facilitated many sessions. Many partners also presented, including the Veterans Health Administration, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, and presenters from across the country, including California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Virginia.
The symposium facilitated momentum toward more automated, timely, localized, and analytically sophisticated syndromic surveillance systems nationwide. The annual symposium will continue to serve as a resource for state and local governments nationwide.