The Epidemiology and Communicable Disease Program of the Will County Health Department works constantly to provide the most current information/prevention and control guidelines to the general public in order to increase awareness of the symptoms and incidence of communicable disease in the county. 

Public outreach is accomplished through speaking engagements and public meetings as well as distributing flyers and brochures. Social media and the new health department website offer additional important ways to get the word out to an increasingly connected public. In carrying out its public outreach program, Epidemiology and Communicable Disease staff are always aware of the need for a seasonal perspective with warnings and alerts about food borne illnesses taking precedence during the summer months and a campaign to urge everyone to take a flu shot occurring during the fall and early winter.

In addition to warning the public about real or potential outbreaks of communicable disease, the program provides written guidance to vulnerable institutions like hospitals, schools businesses and day-care centers about how they can best protect their students, patients and clients from infectious disease. This advice is based on the latest press releases and information from the CDC and the State of Illinois.

What is swine flu? Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses. Outbreaks of swine flu happen regularly in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. 

In close collaboration with our community partners (clinics, hospitals, health care providers) and the wider community, the staff of the Epidemiology and Communicable Disease Program works  to perform case investigations and contact tracing on reportable communicable disease cases. Program staff are especially interested in monitoring the frequency and pattern of health events through hospitalizations and deaths that occur as the result of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as West Nile Virus, Influenza or Hepatitis.

The surveillance and data collection function of the program is greatly assisted by the Illinois law that mandates reporting by health care providers, clinics and hospitals of any suspected or confirmed case of some 39 diseases.  The reportable diseases are divided into three categories and providers have between three hours and 7 days to make a report to the health department. 

Communicable Disease Reporting

A communicable disease can be reported in Will County by one of the following ways:

• Ask for the communicable disease investigator by calling (815) 727-8481.
• Fax to a confidential fax line at, (815) 727-8833.
• Mail communicable disease report to the following address:
  Epidemiology and Communicable Disease Program
  501 Ella Ave.
  Joliet, IL 60433

The Epidemiology and Communicable Disease Program is continuously working with area medical providers to update them on ongoing disease trends as revealed by the data that the program is constantly collecting. The program also helps county health care providers by making available the most current information on the testing, treatment, and prevention of communicable disease. 

The analytic and statistical skills of program staff are also at the disposal of the county whenever the community needs to draw up a broad based survey of health status for planning purposes. Both the 2007 Community Health Needs Assessment and Plan and the 2010-2015 Will County Community Assessment and Strategic Plan benefited from the involvement of Epidemiology and Communicable Disease data staff. In the case of the Community Assessment and Strategic Plan, it was the health department epidemiologist who was given the task of consolidating all the health related data collected by the Community Health Status Assessment Committee and reporting the results to the Steering Committee of the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership Program (MAPP). MAPP is the process that the county adopted for developing a strategic plan for improving health care and health outcomes. At present, the program is actively engaged in supporting the work of all the MAPP action committees.