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

[Music] hi and welcome to this quick overview of Public Health surveillance we'll take a look at what it is different types of surveillance and look at what makes a good surveillance system surveillance is defined as the ongoing systematic collection analysis interpretation and dissemination of data regarding a health related event for use in public health action to reduce morbidity and mortality and to improve health historically surveillance was mainly used to monitor infectious diseases however it can be used to monitor any health related event such as chronic diseases injury Health Services uptake Vector distribution or environmental hazards surveillance can be thought of as the eyes and ears of Public Health the information gained from surveillance can be used for characterizing the patterns of disease detecting outbreaks suggesting hypotheses for further investigation ident identifying cases for further research guiding Disease Control programs setting Public Health priorities or evaluating health programs surveillance systems have a few basic elements first is the way of detecting health events and notifying them this is usually done by a Health Service or laboratory then the information needs to be collected and stored in a systematic way this data then needs to be analyzed and interpreted and finally this information has to reach the right right people so that appropriate action can be taken so now let's have a look at a few different types of surveillance passive surveillance describes the routine reporting of Health Data let's have a look at some examples in most countries there are a number of diseases or conditions that are required to be notified by law surveillance of these notifiable diseases rely mostly on a passive system another example is a registry which is a collection of Health Data data Registries can have data on births deaths cancer chronic diseases and a variety of other diseases Healthcare Providers like hospitals also routinely collect data on the number and type of patients that seek treatment this is another example of passive surveillance passive surveillance is a valuable source of health information one of the biggest advantages of this type of surveillance is that it's generally inexpensive it can be used to provide Baseline data on the health of a population monitor Trends or monitor the impact of an intervention also different types of these data sets can be linked to provide a complete picture of Health there are however a number of limitations of passive surveillance the main one is Under reporting diseases can be under reported because people have mild or asymptomatic illness and don't seek medical treatment for their illness or there's a lack of access to treatment it could also be because laboratory facilities needed to diagn Noosa disease are not adequate or that there are logistical problems with reporting disease in fact there can be a lot of variation in passive surveillance systems from country to Country which is a reflection of social economic 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 out this type of surveillance is commonly used during during outbreaks for example during an outbreak Health teams may visit the community to actively seek out cases that may not have otherwise present it to Health Centers another example of active surveillance is seros surveillance this involves testing blood in a selected population for various markers for example checking for antibodies can be used to check for active or past disease Health surveys are also a good example of actively seeking out health information surveys can be done done on community members Healthcare facilities or entire countries they can be done on an as-needed basis or regularly active surveillance provides more complete and better quality data but is more resource intensive another type of surveillance is Sentinel surveillance this type of surveillance uses selected institutions or groups to provide Health Data on specific diseases or conditions it can be useful for monitoring diseases Trends and detecting outbreaks a disadvantage of Sentinel surveillance is that because it's restricted to a few institutions or groups it cannot detect events that happen outside these therefore it's not that useful for rare or uncommon diseases another form of surveillance that's becoming increasingly useful in today's interconnected world is rumor surveillance this type of surveillance relies on unofficial sources of information like blogs internet discussion groups media hearsay and social media sites rumor surveillance can alert Public Health authorities to incidents or events that require further investigation and can lead to early detection of disease outbreaks the next type of surveillance is syndromic surveillance this involves monitoring non-specific syndromes like presentations for fever respiratory or gastrointestinal illness or other indicators that might highlight illness like the purchases of medicine or absenteeism from work or school the aim of this is to allow early identification of clusters of illness before diagnoses are confirmed and reported to Public Health agencies syndromic surveillance usually relies on automated electronic methods there are other types of surveillance systems as well for example pred is a website that puts together reports of 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 diseases or significant health events while there are many different surveillance types each with its own advantages and disadvantages an integrative approach using all sources of information provides the best overall picture of Health okay now we've had a look at different types of surveillance systems let's have a quick look at what makes a good surveillance system firstly a good surveillance system must have clearly stated obje Ives and have a good system to ensure that these objectives are achieved other characteristics include Simplicity it should be easy to operate and have straightforward case definitions that are easy to apply it should be flexible to accommodate changes in information needs or conditions in which it operates with minimal additional resources the data should be complete and accurate and be of good quality it should be accepted by people and organizations participating in surveillance it needs to have a good sensitivity and positive predictive value it should pick up most if not all cases of the disease that exists in the population surveillance data should be valid meaning that it measures what it intends to measure the system must accurately represent the occurrence of a health event in the population that is being studied with regards to time place and person it must detect health events in a timely manner so that authorities can take appropriate action the resources involved in running the system both human and material must be stable and available when [Music] needed it's also important that surveillance systems are evaluated routinely to make sure that they continue to meet their objectives and that they're serving a useful Public Health function and finally surveillance isn't just about monitoring health events but providing useful information to enable Public Health action so that's an overview of Public Health surveillance we've had a look at what surveillance is different types of surveillance and characteristics of a good surveillance [Music] system

Channel: Let's Learn Public Health

Views: 343,144

Keywords: surveillance, passive surveillance, passive, active, active surveillance, runour surveillance, syndromic surveillance, GPHIN, Promed, notifiable diseases, surveillance systems, public health, public health education, global public health, health education, public health training, medicine, health issues, health surveillance, public health surveillance., disease indicators, disease, health, chronic disease, infectious disease, noncommunicable disease

Id: 3IpE8dE4cVc

Length: 8min 15sec (495 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2017