Public Health Surveillance
Examples of syndromatic surveillance
ED visit, acute care log, lab test orders, 911 calls, over the counter drug sales
Example of Passive surveillance
Reports faxed, mailed, phoned or emailed by by health care providers or laboratories
Surveillance of disease
The ongoing systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice, as well as the timely dissemination of these data to those who need to know
Types of surveillance systems
active, passive, sentinel, syndromatic
Strengths of secondary data
already collected, often have large numbers, summary stats readily available
Examples of active surveillance
calling every Monday, calls initiated as epi study to identify additional cases, and visiting hospitals regularly to check data
Person
demographic information (age, gender, social class)
Secondary data collection
demographics, vital stats, surveillance, health status and behavioral, socioeconomic,
Strengths of sentinel surveillance
detect early appearance of outbreak or epidemic
Strengths of syndromatic surveillance
early recognition of ID outbreak or bioterrorism and assures ongoing systemic surveillance once set up
syndromatic
electronic transfer of data fields describing symptomatology or presenting complaints
Limitations of passive surveillance
incomplete reporting
Sentinel
key report sources are selected to participate in an enhanced disease surveillance system
Tables
more specific, show exact values, clear simple summary, concise, no unnecessary digits, rows and columns labeled, and adequate spacing
Place
natural boundaries, political subdivisions, urban/rural, international, and migrant studies
Data sources for surveillance
notifiable diseases, laboratory specimens, vital records, registries, surveys, administrative data systems
Limitations of syndromatic surveillance
numerous software packages, requires compatible formats, and difficult to define sensitivity to individual or combined measure used
Limitations of secondary data
original purpose of collection, completeness, confidentiality issues, 'unclean' sets, timeliness of availability
Examples of sentinel surveillance
peiodic lab audits, periodic review of medical data, death certificate review, Influenza-it is reported daily; west nile virus monitored using birds
Primary data collection
personal interviews, physical examinations, and biological specimens
Limitations of sentinel surveillance
providers must be willing to cooperate and not population based
Strengths of active surveillance
rapid, complete reporting, increased specimen submission to Public Health Laboratory
passive
reporting sources send in reports of disease at will
active
reports are solicited from reporting sources at established intervals
Limitations of active surveillance
resource intensive, difficult to maintain long term
Time
secular trends, cyclic or seasonal changes, short-term fluctuations, and time/place clusters
Strengths of passive surveillance
simple, not burdensome to public health
Graphs
useful for large sets, show patterns trends and shapes, more information in small space (pie, bar, line, and histogram)
