Public health surveillance (PHS) is an essential public health function (Holland, 2012). A system of public health have five main functions including injury and disease prevention, health surveillance, health protection, population health assessment, and health promotion (Stachenko, 2008). PHS is regarded the best tool to prevent epidemics (Choi & Pak, 2012).
The idea of PHS has evolved in the due course. The term arose within Europe about 600 years back with the scientific thought emergence in the Renaissance and later extended to Americans citizens with the settlers from Europe (Evans, 2012). Before 1950, surveillance denoted close observation of people exposed to some communicable illness to notice early symptoms, as well as institute timely isolation, as well as control measures or strategies. Over the time variations between personal surveillance and surveillance, the utilization of epidemiological concept to explain surveillance, controlling, or monitoring definitions have been differentiated.
PHS dates to the time of Graunt John. John, an English statistician, is regarded the founder of the statistical learning of human populations, demography science, tried to define primary laws of mortality and natality. Graunt developed fundamental principles of PHS, including death counts, disease patterns, disease-particular death counts, and death rates. Before 1662, in 1403 within the Republic of Venice as well subsequently in 1741 within Rhode Island some case surveillance system was crucial within public health. The method was employed to control or manage communicable diseases. Within the two places, those in power controlled communicable diseases through identifying people with plague symptoms and preventing by disembarking, and/or reporting infectious diseases to local governments and managing the spread of disease/illness, respectively (Stachenko, 2008).
In U.S., reporting of contagious diseases started in the year 1874 the time postcard reporting procedure was established within Massachusetts. In the year 1878, Congress allowed the forerunner of the U.S public health service to gather morbidity information for application in quarantine measures in controlling pestilential diseases, for example, smallpox, cholera, yellow fever, and plague. In the year 1881 within Italy reporting of contagious diseases started on a national scale and within other European nations shortly afterward. All the surveillance systems or procedures were concentrated on identifying as well as reporting cases, besides, isolating cases to manage contagious disease outbreaks. The eradication of smallpox in 1970 is an example/illustration of a successful strategic based public health on a thorough surveillance-based approached (Stachenko, 2008). At that time, prior to the development as well as widespread accessibility of vaccines and antibiotics within the twentieth century (20thC), control strategies customarily involve monitoring, contact tracing, quarantine, and treatment. These were considered the most common measures that public health as well as medicine could do.
Currently, few cases of reported pestilential diseases as well as the need for fast actions or measures to prevent/control the spread of contagious diseases remains. The main aim of surveillance for communicable diseases for example STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and TB is to identify/discover infectious people before infecting others, therefore, preventing/controlling an exponentially increasing epidemic. In such way, case surveillance has kept its significance with the growing interest within the emerging bioterrorism and infections since the sudden attacks of 11th September, 2001.
The next phases in disease surveillance should expand the present surveillance approach to involve besides deaths, new cases for communicable diseases. Future phases in disease surveillance must establish long-term measures for surveillance methods as well as avoid ad hoc approaches. Round regulations should be developed on how and when to delete, change, or add definitions of variables within surveillance if novel scientific evidence emerges. Future phase in disease surveillance must establish large scale as well as widespread data gathering systems that are population based. Moreover, expand the present surveillance system based chiefly on outcomes of health to involve risk factors, as well as intervention indicators.
The afore predicted changes will impact public health policy and practice through collecting/gathering physical measurements. The section of the ongoing surveillance function as revealed by many studies have investigated the drawbacks of individual-reported survey information and their effect on estimates like blood pressure and obesity using national survey (Brachman, 2009; Holland, 2012). Besides, predicted alterations will help in the development of standards, which are common to datasets and unique to each or individual datasets. Examples can entail minimum lists of ICD codes and demographic variables, minimum sets in statistical tests, and standard descriptions of statistical tests.
References
Brachman, P. (2009). Public health surveillance. Springer: New York.
Holland, W. (2012). A dubious future for public health? Journal of the (RSM) Royal Society of Medicine, 95(4), 182–188.
Choi, B & Pak, A. (2012). Lessons for surveillance in the 21st century: a historical perspective from the past five millennia, Sozial- und Praventivmedizin, 46(6), 361–368.
Evans, A. (2012). Surveillance and seroepidemiology. Plenum Press: New York.
Stachenko, S. (2008). Challenges and opportunities for surveillance data to inform public health policy on chronic non-communicable diseases: Canadian perspectives, Public Health, 122(10), 1038–1041.
