Summary of Study Session 40

In Study Session 40, you have learned that:

1. Public health surveillance consists of ongoing activities of data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting to higher levels of the health system, with the ultimate aim of preventing and controlling communicable diseases and other health problems.
2. Surveillance is useful to assess the magnitude of health problems, to identify epidemics before they can spread further, to allocate appropriate resources, and to evaluate the progress of interventions and other health services provided by the health facilities.
3. Surveillance programmes can be passive, active or mixed (passive and active) in their procedures for collecting and reporting health-related data.
4. In passive surveillance, you are expected to collect, analyse and interpret data from patients and clients and send reports to the Health Centre as part of your routine work at the Health Post.
5. In active surveillance, you are asked to actively visit households to collect information related to specific diseases or health issues.
6. You should regularly report surveillance data to the nearby Health Centre or District Health Office, keeping to any deadlines; you should request feedback on your report to help you improve your work.