History of Disease Surveillance

History of Disease Surveillance

Introduction

Disease surveillance is an epidemiological procedure through which the disperse and spread out of health issues is tracked in an effort to determine patterns of its growth. The primary purpose of disease surveillance is simply to anticipate, monitor, and reduce the adversities brought on by epidemic, outbreak, and pandemic scenarios, together with maximizing the understanding of factors which help cause this kind of circumstances.

Public health surveillance can be explained as the procedure to collect and disperse the data collected regarding patient and medical history and health which can be used further for future planning and developing strategies to combat patient health issues more effectively and efficiently. Timeliness plays a very vital role in collection and implementation of the data. Earlier implementation will lead better results for the patients and medical staff, while the goals of surveillance will also be achieved (Jajosky & Groseclose, 2004).

Discussion

This is the moment when certain rules and regulations must be implemented regarding human data collection. There should be proper ethical guidelines which should be guiding the collection and surveillance of data and disclosure of that data. There should be proper guidelines whether the data is collected for medical research or public health (Fairchild, 2003).

The idea of public health surveillance has evolved with time. This notion cropped up in European countries around six hundred years back with the emanation of medical considerations during the Renaissance, and eventually dispersed to the Americas with the European settlers. Before 1950, surveillance implied the intimate scrutiny of individuals exposed to a communicable health issue to identify primitive signs or symptoms and initiate quick isolation and control actions. With time differences between “surveillance” and “personal surveillance”, the use of “epidemiological” term to clarify surveillance, checking and managing definitions have been distinguished.

Following the epidemic in United Kingdom in during the 17th century, John Graunt made an effort to outline the primary principles of mortality and natality. A number of elementary fundamentals of public healthcare surveillance were formulated, such as fatality rates, fatality counts, infection patterns, and disease specific mortality counts. In same century institution of a health council as well as the use of a numerical evaluation in mortality stats to public health planning was also started. In eighteenth century fundamental aspects of surveillance were established in certain colonies in the USA; at the time the colony enacted an act demanding tavern keepers to report contagious ...