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Understanding the functional components of public health surveillance

B C K Choi¹, M Ackland²

¹ Population and Public Health Branch, Health Canada, AL no 6701A, 120 Colonnade Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1B4, Canada; Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto; Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada
² Health Surveillance and Evaluation Section, Rural and Regional Health and Aged Care Services Division, Victorian Department of Human Services, Melbourne, Australia

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr B C K Choi;
Bernard_Choi@hc-sc.gc.ca

Keywords: surveillance

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Developing a public health surveillance system is similar to developing a housing estate. Besides the actual building process (setting up infrastructure for data collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination) there are many other requirements to be identified in planning—and care must be taken to ensure products will stand up to the test of time.

The first step is to identify "wants" of homebuyers (recognise and integrate all the "needs" of various stakeholders in a manner that will lead to quality, efficient outcomes). Consultation with government agencies, town planners, and homeowners (relevant authorities and community groups) will ensure planning processes are appropriate to the "authorising environment".

It is then necessary to enlist architects (epidemiologists and public health professionals) who will conceptualise the project and describe scenarios in the form of drawings and models (show the relevance to information needs and applications to public health policy). Architects will also scope engineering, structural and . . . [Full text of this article]

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• Choi, B C K, McQueen, D V, Puska, P, Douglas, K A, Ackland, M, Campostrini, S, Barcelo, A, Stachenko, S, Mokdad, A H, Granero, R, Corber, S J, Valleron, A-J, Skinner, H A, Potemkina, R, Lindner, M C, Zakus, D, de Salazar, L M, Pak, A W P, Ansari, Z, Zevallos, J C, Gonzalez, M, Flahault, A, Torres, R E (2008). Enhancing global capacity in the surveillance, prevention, and control of chronic diseases: seven themes to consider and build upon. J. Epidemiol. Community Health 62: 391-397 [Abstract] [Full Text]