Disease Surveillance Systems

Since 1878, the US Public Health System has been collecting information on infectious conditions for the purpose of early identification and control of massive outbreaks, including, when necessary, instituting quarantines

In 1900, the death rate per 100,000 population for influenza and pneumonia (I & P) was 202.2; it was 22.4 in 2003. How much did the death rate due to I & P decline

John M. Barry has written award winning books including the Influenza pandemic of 1918, and the great Mississippi flood. Being invited by 2 presidential administrations, Bush and Obama, to advise on preparedness for pandemics and pandemic response. Having also advised on state, federal, UN and world health organizations on influenza, water disasters, risk communication and crisis management Barry is more than qualified to talk about such a topic considering his past of assisting the world with disaster prevention and response.

Communication is essential between health care facilities and the CDC. For example, the facilities experience an emergency and follow certain quarantine protocols and alert the local public health department and the CDC. The CDC organizes secure transmission tactics to merge and notify public health officials at local, state, and federal levels. The institute deploys scientific and logistical proficiency, personnel, and vital medical resources to the area of the emergency. The CDC (2012) explains the implementation of the essential medical assets for protection of communities in the state of an emergency:

First Responders, Food Handlers, Medical Providers. It is recommended that all first responders, food handlers, and medical providers get vaccinated, and IgM treatment post exposure event, if applicable (Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, 2017). Like other agencies, forming partnerships with these providers allows them to educate those in their realm, for example, restaurant employees, doctors and nurses, and as in San Diego, paramedics have been trained to give vaccinations to those they treat on the street, as well as being a support at vaccination events (EMS1, 2017). Information can be shared back and forth, thus building community-based data, useful for future outbreaks, also to be shared with others.

I have chosen to focus my paper on the city of Hartford Connecticut. Identifying the right data source to obtain information is very important for managing and targeting the right population in the disease management process. Information can be found in many places, but finding credible sources is very important to assess the community and compare to the nationwide problems.

The ability to contribute to designing prevention and control strategies to prevent endemic or epidemic transmission in the United States was intriguing. As a NACCHO Policy Scholar with the Infectious Disease department, I was thrilled to work on two exciting public health projects; the Flu Near You and HIV/AIDS Policy Initiative Project. Both projects are in line with my areas of interest as a Public health practitioner and included a review of evidenced based literature to understand effective strategies and interventions that could be adopted in these projects.

Mauer does not include in her article a system-based approach in supporting unmet healthcare needs. She references the CDC several times throughout the article, but does not suggest nor provide instructions on how to obtain information from the organization. People can refer to the CDC and receive countless information regarding disease prevention, and actions one can take to protect yourself and others if a disease outbreak were to occur.

The authors highlight that the synchronized efforts of various offices are needed to accomplish this, and they also address the impact that cultural differences may cause between public health and emergency management regarding the overall success of these organizations. This main purpose of this article is to examine how public health and emergency management vary in their approach to laws and policies, and how these differences can negatively affect their preparedness to respond to critical situations. This study was accomplished by conducting 144 interviews with public health and emergency management officials on both the state and local level between the time frame of April 2008 and November 2009. The researchers then used qualitative analysis to compare and contrast the characteristics of each organization and their approach to legitimate public health preparedness. The resulting data was found to show two conflicting approaches to public health law. The public health approach was distinguished by perceived unpredictability with respect to legal power over the methods of preparedness planning, presumption of guidance on interpreting public health laws, and the extension of anxiety regarding the placing of liability. The emergency management approach was characterized by the impression of wide legal authority, flexible connotation of public health law, and moral concerns pertaining to the violation of an individual’s freedom and confidentiality. Botoseneanu, Wu, Wasserman, and Jacobson concluded that “Distinct interpretations of preparedness law impede effective collaboration for PH preparedness. Clarification of legal authority mandates, designation within laws of scope of preparedness activities and guidance on interpretation of current federal and state laws are needed.” (2010, p. 361). These results are clearly

Written by three doctors, who work with Public Health Informatics Institute, this article appears to be intended for medical professionals as well as the general public. The authors suggest that using EHRs in its fullest capacity, could greatly improve general population health in the US. Information such as influenza outbreaks, communicable diseases, and acute infectious gastrointestinal disease are currently reported to the CDC through use of EHRs. Under HITECH meaningful use laws, only syndromic surveillance, laboratory reporting, and registries are currently reported. The article also discusses the stages of meaningful use in depth and how each needs to be achieved in accordance with HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health). It is suggested that in the future, trending information could help isolate incidences of certain problems/diagnoses to certain geographical locations. This can potentially help practitioners in figuring out a source for such

Protecting the public’s health historically has been a state and local responsibility. However, the growing threat of bioterrorism has highlighted the importance of a strong public health infrastructure to the nation’s homeland security and has focused increased attention on the preparedness of the public health system (Frist, 2011). Since the 2001 anthrax attacks Congress has passed new legislation to increase the strength of the nation’s public health system thus the funding has also rapidly increased to meet the potential demand. There is an ongoing debate however, as to what level of contribution local, state, and federal agency’s feel is an appropriate level of ongoing public health investments.

Surveillance is important in epidemiology because it can serve as an early warning system, it can keep record of the impacts interventions have on diseases, and it can allow for review to better handle epidemics in the

Katz, R. (2018). Essentials of public health preparedness and emergency management (1st ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning

There are six core functions of epidemiology (Dicker, Coronado, Koo, & Parrish, 2012). The first function is public health surveillance. Public health surveillance can be defined as the method of collecting and analyzing data to better serve the health and well-being of the public efficiently and effectively. For example, if hospitals start seeing more cases of tuberculosis epidemiologists can analyze collected data to find a pattern or commonality among those who were treated. If they find that the majority of patients are from the same geographical location, they may want to concentrate their field investigation efforts in that area. Public health surveillance is important to the study of

In population health, registered nurses can assist in epidemic preventions through screening and surveillance. Surveillance is a continuous process which involves data collection and data analysis. Surveillance is constantly practised because it is used as a prevention method to identify possible outbreaks (Oleske, 2009). Once an outbreak is identified, screening is a process of looking for early signs of disease manifestation in individuals, so nurses can identify the health issue early and ensure better chances of successful treatments and slow down the outbreak development (Oleske, 2009). Although nurses are required to safeguard personal information and support confidentiality (ANMC, 2008b), their duty is to notify the