Public health surveillance provides the scientific and factual database essential to informed decision making and appropriate public health action. The key objective of surveillance is to provide information to guide interventions .
What is the purpose of conducting a surveillance?
Information from surveillance systems can be used to monitor the burden of a disease over time, detect changes in disease occurrence (e.g., outbreaks), determine risk factors for the disease and populations at greatest risk, guide immediate public health actions for individual patients or the community, guide programs ...
What is surveillance in the context of public health?
Public health surveillance is “ the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health-related data essential to planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice .” — Field Epidemiology.
What is the most important aspect of public health surveillance?
Data and Defining the Health Problem
A health problem must be well defined before it can be solved. Surveillance systems generate data that help public health officials understand existing and emerging infectious and non-infectious diseases.
What is health surveillance?
Health surveillance is a system of ongoing health checks . These health checks may be required by law for employees who are exposed to noise or vibration, ionising radiation, solvents, fumes, dusts, biological agents and other substances hazardous to health, or work in compressed air.
What is the aim of health surveillance?
The objectives for health surveillance are:
Protecting the health of employees by early detection of adverse changes or disease; Collecting data for detecting or evaluating health hazards; Evaluating control measures .
Why does Public Health England carry out health surveillance?
Surveillance is a core function for Public Health England ( PHE ) and ensures that we have the right information available to us at the right time to inform public health decisions and actions .
Why we need different types of surveillance for health events?
Public health departments at the federal, state, and local levels use different types of surveillance systems to promote health and prevent disease . These systems can be used to monitor disease trends and plan public health programs.
How do I know if my health surveillance is necessary?
Health surveillance is required by Section 22 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, 2005 if a risk assessment identifies that employees are exposed to noise or vibration, solvents, fumes, dusts, biological agents and other substances hazardous to health .
Who is responsible for health surveillance?
For more technical methods of health surveillance, it is advisable that occupational health professionals assume responsibility for delivering health surveillance programmes.
What is the advantage of active surveillance?
Advantages. As you won’t have treatment while you’re on active surveillance, you’ll avoid the side effects of treatment . Active surveillance won’t affect your everyday life as much as treatment might. If tests show that your cancer might be growing, there are treatments available that aim to cure your cancer.
What are the importance of public health surveillance to the Ministry of health in South Sudan?
Given South Sudan’s increased vulnerability to disease outbreaks and other public health threats, strengthening national disease surveillance and response and systems is crucial for early detection and rapid containment of disease outbreaks to help prevent needless illnesses and deaths .
Why is event based surveillance important?
Event-based surveillance (EBS) can contribute to rapid detection of acute public health events . This is particularly relevant in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) which may have poor public health infrastructure.
