Surveillance and Prevention of the Impacts of Extreme Meteorological Events on Public Health System (SUPREME)

The Surveillance and Prevention of the Impacts of Extreme Meteorological Events on Public Health System (SUPREME) (https://www.inspq.rtss.qc.ca/geo/supreme/index.php) is a source of information that affords regional and departmental interveners in the public health network access, at a single site through a secure portal, to health and meteorological information concerning the health impacts of extreme weather events (Toutant et al., 2011). It better equips interveners to make enlightened decisions concerning the triggering of preventive measures during extreme weather events that threaten population health. The Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) developed the system pursuant to a mandate from the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS) under the 2006-2012 Action Plan on Climate Change (APCC).

The first component of the SUPREME system, “Warnings,” transmits by email to its subscribers (HSSN and civil protection staff) warnings in real time when weather forecasts report a possible extreme weather event in the coming hours. Its second component, the SUPREME Portal, allows for surveillance and monitoring of six weather hazards (heat waves, flooding, intense cold, forest fires, abundant snowfall, ice storms) and their impacts on health. The human health indicators disseminated in the SUPREME system include the number of deaths, hospitalizations, all emergency department consultations, ambulance transport, and calls to Info-Santé. Section 4.2 describes its third component, the public health geo portal.

In conjunction with surveillance of mental health impacts, the SUPREME system could be useful with respect to the historical background of weather events, comparison with historic weather statistics for a given region or Québec as a whole, and health monitoring.