Last Updated: January 2020

Author: Infectious Disease Epidemiology Program, Vermont Department of Health

The Infectious Disease Epidemiology program at the Vermont Department of Health is responsible for conducting Lyme disease surveillance in Vermont. These surveillance efforts are used to measure the incidence of disease in the state, identify important changes in disease activity, and provide an evidence base for the Department’s Lyme disease education and outreach activities.

Our surveillance efforts begin when we receive a Lyme disease report from a health care facility or laboratory. Epidemiologists investigate each report by contacting health care providers to gather information on the patient’s demographics, symptoms, laboratory results and exposure history. Once this information is gathered, the case is classified according to the standardized national case definition for Lyme disease, recorded in our database, and used to inform public health action.

The number of Lyme disease investigations conducted by the Health Department has steadily increased over the years, but may fluctuate year-to-year. Several factors influence how many reports of Lyme disease we receive each year including ecological factors, population changes, amount of testing performed by health care providers, and awareness of the disease.

• Health care providers

• Clinical and commercial laboratories

Infectious Disease Epidemiology Program staff work diligently to investigate each Lyme disease report that we receive. To keep up with an increasing number of reports we have developed a novel, Microsoft Access-based system to import Lyme disease case data from our infectious disease surveillance system database and use it to electronically pre-populate investigation forms. These are sent securely to health care providers to gather additional information required to classify cases.

The Infectious Disease Epidemiology Program continues to work with the CDC and other state health departments to improve surveillance efficiency so that we can continue to investigate each Lyme disease report. Many of the Lyme disease reports we receive are delivered on paper, requiring staff to manually enter data into our database. We work with information technology partners to increase the number of reports we receive electronically, which will lower the burden of manual data entry and allow more time for investigation and analysis.