At the 2026 Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Annual Conference, several abstracts highlighted how public health teams are expanding the use of ESSENCE® to integrate new data sources and strengthen real-time surveillance.

From connecting environmental and clinical data to incorporating global intelligence streams, these projects demonstrate how ESSENCE® continues to evolve as a flexible platform for modern public health insight.

Below are highlights from two featured presentations.

Waste Not, Want Not: Integrating Wastewater Data with ESSENCE®​

Presented by Natasha Close

Wastewater surveillance offers a unique advantage in public health: it captures population-level signals, including asymptomatic spread, often before trends appear in clinical data.

However, interpreting wastewater data in isolation can be challenging due to the lack of clinical and demographic context.

This abstract showcased how wastewater data can be fully integrated into ESSENCE®, enabling users to analyze environmental and clinical trends within a single platform.

Key capabilities include:

  • Comparing wastewater signals with emergency department data in near real time
  • Aligning data geographically using catchment areas mapped to ZIP codes and regions
  • Overlaying environmental and clinical data to explore correlations and trends

By bringing these data sources together, ESSENCE® enables more context-rich analysis and earlier detection of emerging health threats, supporting improved situational awareness and decision-making.

“In the News” Dashboard: ​Integrating HealthMap™ Intelligence into ESSENCE®​

Presented by Natasha Close

A second presentation, “In the News: Integrating HealthMap™ Intelligence into ESSENCE®,” focused on bringing global infectious disease intelligence directly into local surveillance workflows.

HealthMap compiles online reports of infectious disease activity worldwide, providing early indicators of emerging threats.

However, analysts traditionally need to manually review alerts, translate them into queries, and switch between systems—creating delays and additional effort.

To streamline this process, the team developed a myESSENCE “In the News” dashboard that integrates HealthMap data directly into ESSENCE®.

The dashboard:

  • Automatically ingests and filters relevant HealthMap articles
  • Maps reported diseases to ESSENCE® queries
  • Generates 90-day time series views of corresponding local healthcare data
  • Presents global signals alongside local trends in a single interface

This approach connects early global signals to local context, improving timeliness and enabling faster validation of emerging events.

A Clear Theme: Integration Drives Better Insight

Across both presentations, a consistent pattern emerges:

  • New data sources are brought directly into ESSENCE®
  • Workflows are automated to reduce manual effort
  • Signals are immediately connected to local context

Whether integrating wastewater data or global intelligence, ESSENCE® serves as the platform that brings these pieces together—helping public health teams move from signal to insight to action.

As demonstrated at CSTE 2026, the future of surveillance isn’t just about collecting more data—it’s about making that data accessible, connected, and actionable within a single system.