Communicable Disease Outbreaks in Michigan Child Care Centers Compared With State and Regional Epidemics, 2014–2017.

The Michigan Child Care Related Infections Surveillance Program (MCRISP) is a novel, online illness surveillance system used by a collection of southeast Michigan child care centers. Recently established, MCRISP has not been assessed epidemiologically. We created MCRISP epidemic curves for both respiratory and gastrointestinal disease over three seasons, comparing these to data from an established statewide surveillance system. Results suggest that online child care center–based disease surveillance is timely, functional, and has potential as an early sentinel system for community epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]