Professional Documents
Culture Documents
and
the CDC
Public Health Surveillance
Public health surveillance is the
mechanism that public health agencies
use to monitor the health of their
communities. Its purpose is to provide
a factual basis from which agencies can
appropriately set priorities, plan
programs, and take actions to promote
and protect the public health.
Health Care
Providers
Collecting
Summaries,
and
Interpretations, Health organizing
the data
Recommendation
s Agencies
United States Department of Health and
Human Services (HSS) - Donna Shalala
Implement Surveillance
Mortality
reports Demographic
Morbidity reports Environmental
Infectious disease Animal reservoirs
reports or vectors
Lab reports
Case studies
Epidemic investigations
Special surveys
(hospital admissions,
What kind of Mortality Data is
typically available?
Vital Statistics
Birth
Death
Marriage
Divorce
Medical Examiner Data
Information on sudden or unexpected
deaths
Who surveys the vital statistics in
this country?
The CDC
The CDCs National Center for Health
Statistics collects a national monthly
sample and reports on it in the
MMWR every three months.
The NCHS provides a complete national
mortality report and dataset
about every 2- 3 years.
These reports are published in the MMWR.
What kind of Morbidity Data is
typically available?
Notifiable Disease Reports
Laboratory Data
Hospital Data
Most hospitals have computerized
discharge records
Several states routinely compile these
reports
On a national level, the National Hospital
Discharge Survey takes a random sample of
hospitals each year (conducted by NCHS)
Summary of Notifiable
Diseases(CDC)
Acquired immunodeficiency Haemophilus influenzae Rabies, animal
Lack of representativeness
Underreporting is not uniformly distributed it
is disease specific
Hazard surveillance
(chemical,
radiation, physical)
National library of medicine
Images in Public Health
History
Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry
It is an agency of the U.S. Public Health
Service
It researches and provides data on the
release of hazardous substances
This HazDat Database includes:
Geographical information on the site
Site Characteristics (activities and events)
Contaminants found (media and
concentrations)
Results from Michigan Query:
Site ID Case ID
Contaminant
Media s_loc_txt
max_conc
conc_unit_txt
MID017075136 000095-50-1
1,2-DICHLOROBENZENE
Sediment, Unspecified Not Reported
NULL NULL
MID017075136 000540-59-0
1,2-DICHLOROETHYLENE
Groundwater, Monitor Onsite
52 ppb
Surveying Drug Utilization
Facilitating planning
Monitor health practice Hospital discharge data National coverageSample, not enumeratio
Timely; Length of Measures discharges,
history not people; Cannot
detect infrequent event
Plan public health Risk factor surveillance National estimate Sample; Limited
practice epidemiological info.
Self-reported data
For example:
Most people feel comfortable with saying
5% but tend to feel
uncomfortable with 0.005% so
we would tend to express it as 5 per
100,000
Expressing Measures of Disease
Frequency II