Institutional gastroenteritis outbreaks and time to notify public health services.

Aim: We report a quantification and visualisation of the association between the time to notify public health service (PHS) and the duration and size of institutional gastroenteritis outbreaks, and explore the seasonality and trend of the outbreaks.

Method: Descriptive analysis was performed on institutional gastroenteritis outbreak data from a North Island PHS (1 January 2009-31 December 2014). Time-series analysis was used to explore the seasonality and trend of outbreaks.