Syndromic Surveillance: The Case for Skillful Investment

摘要: PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE is the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data regarding a health-related event that enables public health authorities to reduce morbidity mortality.1 Surveillance serves many functions—for example, estimating burden disease or injury, portraying natural history condition, determining distribution spread illness, generating hypotheses stimulating research, supporting control interventions, evaluating prevention measures, facilitating planning.2 One important function surveillance particularly relevant biodefense outbreak detection—that is, ability detect an abnormal rise in frequency disease. Infectious outbreaks typically have been recognized either through accumulation departments case reports suspected diagnosed cases reportable disease, by alert care professionals, laboratorians, bringing clusters diseases attention authorities. Syndromic (defined below) approach may extend current capabilities early their course. The concept syndromic has not clarified precisely, however, expectations what such can accomplish vary widely. Evaluation effectiveness as one component comprehensive strategy for detection urgently needed so policy makers determine if, when, how this technique should be applied.