An Introduction to Surveillance - The Eyes and Ears of Public Health

Hello and welcome to this quick overview of

public

health

surveillance

. We will take a look at the different types of

surveillance

and see what makes a good surveillance system defined as the systematic collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of data about a

health

-related Event for use in health actions to reduce morbidity and mortality and improve health. Historically, surveillance was primarily used to monitor infectious diseases; However, it can be used to monitor any health-related events, such as chronic diseases, injuries. Capture of health services. Vector or environmental distribution. Hazard surveillance can be considered the

eyes

and

ears

of Public Health.

Information obtained from surveillance can be used to characterize disease patterns. Detect outbreaks. Suggest hypotheses for further investigation. Identify cases for future investigations. evaluate health programs surveillance systems have some basic elements first is the way to detect health events and notify them this is generally done by a health service or laboratory then the information must be collected and stored systematically these data must then be stored analyzed and interpreted and ultimately this information has to reach the right people so that appropriate action can be taken. Now let's look at some different types of surveillance. Passive surveillance describes the routine reporting of health data.

Let's look at some examples. In most countries there are a number of diseases or conditions that must be notified by law. Surveillance of these notifiable diseases depends mainly on a passive system. Another example is a registry that is a collection of health data. Records may have data on births and deaths. cancer, chronic diseases and a variety of other illnesses. Health care providers, such as hospitals, also routinely collect data on the number and type of patients seeking treatment. This is another example of passive surveillance. Passive surveillance is a valuable source of health information. One of the biggest advantages of this.

The type of surveillance is that it is generally inexpensive and can be used to provide baseline data on the health of a population. Monitor trends or monitor the impact of an intervention. Additionally, different types of these data sets can be linked to provide a complete picture of health. However, there are a number of limitations of passive surveillance, the main one being that diseases that are not reported may be under-reported because people have mild or asymptomatic diseases and do not seek medical treatment for their disease or there is a lack of access to treatment, It could also be due to laboratory tests. the facilities needed to diagnose Noosa disease are not adequate or that there are logistical problems in reporting the disease;

In fact, there can be a lot of variation in passive surveillance systems from one country to another, which is a reflection of socioeconomic, cultural and epidemiological factors. Now let's take a look at active surveillance in contrast to passive surveillance in Active surveillance Health data is actively sought This type of surveillance is commonly used during outbreaks, for example, during an outbreak Health teams can visit the community to search actively cases that would not otherwise have been presented to health centers Another example of active surveillance is serous surveillance, which involves testing blood in a selected population for various markers, for example antibody checking can be used to detect active or past illnesses.

Health surveys are also a good example of active health seeking. Information surveys can be carried out with community members. Healthcare facilities or entire countries. They can be done as needed or periodically. Active surveillance provides more complete and better quality data, but requires more resources. Another type of surveillance is sentinel surveillance. Surveillance uses selected institutions or groups to provide health data about specific diseases or conditions. It can be useful for monitoring diseases. Trends and detect outbreaks. A disadvantage of Sentinel surveillance is that, because it is restricted to a few institutions or groups, it cannot detect events that occur outside of them. therefore, it is not as useful for rare or uncommon diseases.

Another form of surveillance that is becoming increasingly useful in today's interconnected world is rumor surveillance. This type of surveillance relies on unofficial sources of information, such as blogs, Internet discussion groups, media rumors, and social networking sites. Rumor monitoring can be a warning. Public health authorities to incidents or events that require further investigation and may lead to early detection of disease outbreaks. The next type of surveillance is syndromic surveillance, which involves monitoring for non-specific syndromes, such as presentations of fever, respiratory or gastrointestinal illnesses, or other indicators that may highlight illness. such as medication purchases or absenteeism from work or school, the aim of this is to allow early identification of disease clusters before diagnoses are confirmed and reported to

public

health agencies.

Syndromic surveillance generally relies on automated electronic methods. There are other types of surveillance systems. Well, for example, pred is a website that compiles reports on disease events and the global public health intelligence network is an Internet-based early warning tool that uses an automated process to monitor online news sources for illnesses or major health events, while there are many different ones. types of surveillance, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, an integrative approach that uses all sources of information provides the best overall picture of health. Well, now that we've taken a look at the different types of surveillance systems, let's take a quick look at what makes a good surveillance system.

Firstly, a good surveillance system must have clearly stated objectives and have a good system to ensure that these objectives are achieved. Other features include simplicity. It should be easy to operate and have simple case definitions that are easy to apply. You must be flexible to adapt to changes. in information needs or conditions in which it operates with minimal additional resources, the data must be complete, accurate and of good quality, must be accepted by the people and organizations involved in surveillance, must have good sensitivity and predictive value Most, if not all, cases of the disease that exist in the population surveillance data must be valid, meaning that they measure what they are intended to measure.

The system must accurately represent the occurrence of a health event in the population being studied with respect to time. place and person must detect health events in a timely manner so that the authorities can take appropriate measures the resources involved in the operation of the system, both human and material, must be stable and available when necessary it is also important that health systems Surveillance are routinely evaluated to ensure that they continue to meet their objectives and serve a useful public health function and, finally, surveillance is not just about monitoring health events but about providing useful information to enable public health action.

That's an overview of the public health surveillance we've had. See what surveillance is, different types of surveillance and characteristics of a good surveillance system.