How Do Government Health Agencies Conduct Disease Surveillance?
Disease surveillance is a cornerstone of epidemiology. Government health agencies employ several methods to monitor disease patterns:
- Passive Surveillance: Collecting data from healthcare providers and laboratories as they report cases of specific diseases. - Active Surveillance: Proactively seeking out information by contacting healthcare providers and conducting surveys. - Sentinel Surveillance: Monitoring a selected group of healthcare providers or institutions to detect trends in specific diseases. - Syndromic Surveillance: Using health-related data (e.g., emergency room visits, over-the-counter medication sales) to identify potential outbreaks before diagnoses are confirmed.
