Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR)

ESR was founded during the 1992 Crown Research Institute reorganisation. Its public-health work included the EpiSurv national notifiable-disease database and laboratory-based surveillance. GIS analysis of notification records depended on accurate case locations, consistent geographic divisions and collaboration between public-health units, epidemiologists and laboratory specialists.

During the 2005 Christchurch Legionnaires' disease outbreak ESR supplied microbiological confirmation and EpiSurv surveillance infrastructure. Spatial cluster analysis was performed in a wider investigation involving Canterbury public-health staff and Ministry of Health analysts. A peer-reviewed study was published later, in 2013. ESR's laboratory and database role should not be confused with responsibility for all the mapping.