Epidemical characteristics of school public health emergency in Shaanxi Province during 2004-2015

Objective To analyze the epidemical characteristics of school public health emergencies in Shaanxi Province.Methods The descriptive epidemiological method was conducted to analyze the school public health emergencies reported by Shaanxi Province from 2004 to 2015.Results A total of 357 events of public health emergency were reported in Shaanxi Province,among those 77.3% (276/357) were school incidents.About 66.7% of all these school incidents were moderate level,and 31.2% were ungraded level.84.8% were respiratory infectious diseases,including mumps (31.9%),influenza (21.7%) and chickenpox (20.7%);followed by intestinal infectious disease (8.3%),mainly Hand-Foot-Mouth disease (3.3%) and other infectious diarrhea (2.9%).After 2010,incident report rate was relatively stable,and the peak of school public health emergency during each year was from March to June (50.4%) and September to December (43.1%).More than half of events took place in primary schools (54.0%),followed by kindergartens (13.4%).About 57.3% of school events reported in rural areas.70.3% of the events were reported by medical institutions,4.0% were reported by schools and only 6.9% reported by public health staffs.Nearly 70.1% of the events were reported within 2 hours,68.1% of respiratory infectious diseases and 73.9% of intestinal infectious diseases were reported within 2 hours,respectively.Conclusion Schools are most common places where public health emergencies occur.Prevention strategies should focus on rural and primary schools,as well as respiratory infectious diseases.