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ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2012. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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ISDS 2012 Conference Abstracts

Utilization of Various Data Sources to Locate West Nile
Clusters in Tulsa County
Nicole Schlaefli*2, Kiran Duggirala2 and Scott Meador1

1Tulsa City-County Health Department, Enviromental Health Program, Tulsa, OK, USA; 2Tulsa City-County Health Department, Health,
Data, and Evaluation Divison, Tulsa, OK, USA

Objective
Identify, analyze, and summarize WNV in Tulsa County, Okla-

homa

Introduction
As the summer temperatures soared to their highest ever recorded,

Oklahoma experienced its highest disease count ever since the disease
had been discovered in New York in 1999. Tulsa County is the sec-
ond most populous county in Oklahoma and accounted for over one-
fourth of the West Nile Cases in Oklahoma. Tulsa City County Health
Department is also the only funded mosquito control program in the
state that regularly reports to CDC’s AborNet.

Methods
As part of the mosquito surveillance program run by TCCHD’s

Environmental Health Program, 75 mosquito traps are placed around
the county. The traps are tested once a week during the season which
runs May to November. The areas that the traps are located in are
then sprayed with mosquito repellent. The EHP also gathers addresses
of the West Nile positive persons that are reported to the Epidemiol-
ogy Department. The positive trap locations and the human case ad-
dresses are then mapped onto a geographic representation map of
Tulsa County using ArcGIS ArcMap 10.0 software.Historical trend
analysis data of past West Nile cases by year, age, location and cli-
mate are then compared to the current year.

Results
From interviews conducted with West Nile positive human cases,

the majority of cases reported the likelihood of being bitten on their
property. Once the human case locations were overlaid with positive
trap locations and a map of the storm drain system in Tulsa County,
clusters formed and areas that needed to be sprayed were identified.

Conclusions
Recommendations are made throughout the season to community

officials based on analysis and results found. Lessons learned from
the outbreak response conducted included: 

Addition of larvacidal treatment of Tulsa County Storm drainage
system 

Aggressive marketing campaign in regards to prevention meth-
ods

Purpose and role of Long Term Acute Care centers in regards to
human recovery

Proposed creation of a West Nile Survivors Group

West Nile Virus Disease

Keywords
Surveillance; West Nile; Mosquito

Acknowledgments

Christie McDonald-Hamm, MPH; Surveillance Officer, Department of
Informatics; Oklahoma State Department of Health

References

Tulsa County, Oklahoma Public Works Department 
Public Health Investigation of Disease Database in Oklahoma (PHIDDO) 
Mosquito Database, Environmental Health Program, Tulsa City County

Health Department 
http://www.cdc.gov/ncdod/dvbid/westnile/index.htm
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Environmental Protec-

tion Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, and Amer-
ican Water Works Association. 2010. When every drop counts:
protecting public health during drought conditions— a guide for pub-
lic health professionals. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.

*Nicole Schlaefli
E-mail: nschlaefli@tulsa-health.org

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * 5(1):e143, 2013