Importance Of Public Health Surveillance

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1. Using HIV/AIDS as an example to discuss why public health authorities need to conduct public health surveillance and to describe how surveillance system is managed in Australia (9 marks) (up to 800 words) The term public health surveillance has been defined as ‘the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice’ (WHO, 2016). Consequently, the fundamental goal of public health surveillance is to collect information as to prevent, control and take action in relation to all forms of diseases, including HIVAIDS. According to Nsubuga and White (2006), the purpose of surveillance system is to empower decision-making in order …show more content…

In 2014, 1,081 people were diagnosed with HIV, with the majority of new HIV diagnoses (75%) occurring among gay and bisexual men (HIV statistics in Australia, 2016). Hence, by providing these statistics it permits the nation to be aware that HIVAIDS is still a disease that needs more attention and health authorities need to invest more time into this forms of disease . Public health surveillance is useful both for measuring the need for interventions and for directly measuring the effects of interventions. Public health authorities need to conduct surveillance to reduce the risk of disease and to promote health. Additionally it is vital to conduct public health surveillance as it assists to learn the ongoing patterns of the disease occurrence and the potential for disease in a population (Lesson 5 Public Health Surveillance, 2016). Thus, this enables efficiency in investigating, controlling, and preventing disease in that population group (Lesson 5 Public Health Surveillance 2016). The National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System best known as NNDSS, permits all stages of public health to incorporate, allowing the state, local, territorial and federal governments to distribute notifiable disease and other interrelated health materials. The NNDSS provides leadership and resources to local, state, and territorial public health sectors to adopt standards-based systems, which are required to support the national disease surveillance

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