Public Health Surveillance
, Public Health
Defined
• Public health can be defined as
– An approach to health that aims to improve the health of an entire
nation
– The way in which nations monitors, analyzes, and draws conclusions
about health concerns
• Things that can pose a threat to public health range from
– infectious disease outbreaks (e.g., influenza or Ebola viruses), to
– chronic illnesses (e.g., heart disease, cancers, or diabetes), to
– environmental disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes),
to
– biologic or chemical terrorism.
, What is
Public Health Surveillance?
• The ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of
health data, essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation
of public health practice, closely integrated with the timely
dissemination to those who need to know
• Surveillance provides the information for descriptive epidemiology,
which is
• Person (age, sex, description)
• Place (where)
• Time (dates, hours, days, months, years)
, Public Health
Defined
• Public health can be defined as
– An approach to health that aims to improve the health of an entire
nation
– The way in which nations monitors, analyzes, and draws conclusions
about health concerns
• Things that can pose a threat to public health range from
– infectious disease outbreaks (e.g., influenza or Ebola viruses), to
– chronic illnesses (e.g., heart disease, cancers, or diabetes), to
– environmental disasters (e.g., hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes),
to
– biologic or chemical terrorism.
, What is
Public Health Surveillance?
• The ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of
health data, essential to the planning, implementation, and evaluation
of public health practice, closely integrated with the timely
dissemination to those who need to know
• Surveillance provides the information for descriptive epidemiology,
which is
• Person (age, sex, description)
• Place (where)
• Time (dates, hours, days, months, years)
