Research · Surveillance
Communicable disease surveillance
Prevention and control under authorised surveillance: identifying cases, incidence and prevailing levels, impacts and trends.
The cycle
Detection through response
What surveillance requires
Four conditions
A stable denominator
You cannot detect a rise without knowing the base.
Consistent case definition
Coded, so that the definition does not drift between observers.
Timeliness
Data that arrives after the outbreak has run is history, not surveillance.
A response path
Detection with no response attached is monitoring, not control.
Authorisation
Whose surveillance this is
Communicable disease surveillance is a function of the state. The Foundation's role is to facilitate it — by producing timely, coded data from the populations it serves and transmitting it to the appropriate agencies — not to substitute for it.
Discuss surveillance integration.
For district and state health authorities.