Public health surveillance

Clinical surveillance refers to the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data about a clinical syndrome that has a significant impact on public health, which is then used to drive decisions about health policy and health education. Such techniques have been used in particular to study infectious diseases. Many large institutions, such as the WHO and the CDC, have created databases and modern computer systems (public health informatics) that can track and monitor emerging outbreaks of illnesses such as influenza, SARS, HIV, and even bioterrorism, such as the 2001 anthrax attacks on federal agencies in the United States. Many regions and countries have their own cancer registry to monitor the incidence of cancers to determine the prevalence and possible causes of these illnesses.

Other illnesses such as one-time events like stroke and chronic conditions such as diabetes, as well as social problems such as domestic violence, are increasingly being integrated into epidemiologic databases called disease registries that are being used in cost-benefit Analysis in determining governmental funding for research and prevention. Many see this health outcomes data as greatly beneficial, but this kind of work is often controversial because many of the statistics, like Quality-adjusted life years and Disability Adjusted Life Years, involve quantifying the worth of human lives or years lived according to highly subjective concepts such as survival, quality of life, and productivity measures. Population-based healthcare is being promoted as registries are integrated, and health outcomes are increasingly being monitored.

See also

• 1985 World Health Organization AIDS surveillance case definition
• AIDS defining clinical condition
• Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists
• Emergency Warning and Response System EWRS
• GIDEON-Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Network
• Global spread of H5N1 (a strain of influenza)
• Infection control
• List of notifiable diseases
• Mass surveillance
• Reporting disease cases
• STD testing
• UK statutory notification system

References

• University of Washington, Dept of Epidemiology, online course, Introduction to Epidemiologic Methods [1]
• University of Washington, Dept of Epidemiology, online course, Cost & Outcomes Research [2]
• JAMIA: Implementing Syndromic Surveillance: A Practical Guide Informed by the Early Experience [3]
• JAMIA: Automated Syndromic Surveillance for the 2002 Winter Olympics [4]
• Healthcare IT Collaboration in Massachusetts. First published July 27, 2005 as JAMIA PrePrint; doi:10.1197/jamia.M1866 [5]
• James L Gale, MD, MS. Introduction to Public Health Surveillance, Northwest Center for Public Health Practice, University of Washington [6]
• Ivan J Gotham, Perry F Smith, Guthrie S Birkhead, et al. Policy Issues in Developing Information Systems for Public Health Surveillance of Communicable Diseases. In Patrick W O'Carroll, William A Yasnoff, M Elizabeth Ward, et al, eds. Public Health Informatics and Information Systems. New York: Springer, 2003. p 537-573. [[7]]