Connecticut Joins National Initiative to Monitor Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
/The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) has announced that Connecticut is one of the first states in the nation to share data through the new U.S. Disease Tracker (USDT), a national platform launched to strengthen public monitoring of vaccine-preventable diseases.
The tracker, created by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and Johns Hopkins University (JHU), in partnership with state and territorial health agencies, offers the public, media, healthcare providers, and policymakers reliable, visual information on current disease trends.
The USDT initially tracks three vaccine-preventable diseases, measles, invasive meningococcal disease, and pertussis or whooping cough, at the state and substate level, with additional diseases and conditions planned for the coming months, including mumps, varicella, hepatitis A, mpox, and influenza-associated pediatric mortality.
“Connecticut's participation reflects our ongoing commitment to transparency and to giving residents and providers timely, trustworthy information they can act on.” said Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D. “This is particularly important as we work to protect communities against preventable diseases. Sharing standardized data through a platform like the U.S. Disease Tracker strengthens our ability to spot trends early, coordinate with neighboring states, and support the healthcare providers on the front lines of patient care.”
The Connecticut Department of Public Health indicates multiple reasons driving the state’s decision to be among the first to join the initiative:
The tracker launches at a time when measles cases are at their highest levels in over three decades nationally and childhood vaccination rates continue to decline.
Connecticut is one of 10 states currently sharing data directly with the tracker on a weekly basis, alongside Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, and Tennessee. More than 25 states and territories have committed to join in the coming months.
Unlike dashboards built on media reports or web scraping, the USDT is built on standardized, validated data submitted directly by participating health departments, giving Connecticut residents and healthcare providers a more complete and accurate picture of disease activity.
The tracker complements, and does not replace, the CDC's National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS), which continues to provide the backbone of national disease surveillance.
The tracker provides a number of public benefits, the Department points out:
Detailed, local data: Cases are displayed at the state and substate level, with visualizations designed to show trends over time and by geography.
Age group breakdowns: Case data are reported by age groups to highlight which populations are most affected.
Weekly updates: Data are refreshed every Friday morning, with the most recent submission date displayed for each state.
Open access: All data are publicly available and downloadable through a linked USDT GitHub repository for use by researchers, media, and the public.
The U.S. Disease Tracker is available at usdiseasetracker.org. For more information on vaccine-preventable diseases in Connecticut, visit ct.gov/dph. Residents with questions about vaccination or health services in their community can also call 2-1-1 Connecticut.
