Understanding the functional components of public health surveillance
- 1Population 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
- 2Health Surveillance and Evaluation Section, Rural and Regional Health and Aged Care Services Division, Victorian Department of Human Services, Melbourne, Australia
- Correspondence to: Dr B C K Choi; BernardChoihc-sc.gc.ca
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, …
