year period were analyzed. The initial analysis focused upon gastrointestinal illness given the potential relationship of gastrointestinal distress to infectious outbreaks, food contamination and intentional poisonings (ricin). After accounting for seasonality, a significant gastrointestinal event was detected in February 2010 (see red circle on graph in Fig. 1 ). This event coincided with the announcement of a norovirus outbreak (2) . The use of CUSUM approach (yellow circle on graph) detected the alert event as early as January 24, 2010. Using the novel TAP approach on a regional basis detected the alert as early as December 6, 2009 .