Exploring the Role of Surveillance in Infection Control

The assignment explores the role of surveillance as a crucial epidemiological tool to gauge population health needs and interventions. It delves into different surveillance systems: active and passive, emphasizing why passive systems receive more attention. The analysis is supported with examples like Canada's Transfusion Transmitted Injuries Surveillance System (TTISS), which reported 3,957 adverse reactions from 2006-2012. Challenges in environmental public health surveillance are highlighted, such as poor disease understanding, multiple potential causes, and disproportionate public alarm. Further strengthening of passive systems like TTIS is recommended for better monitoring.

Running Head: INFECTION
Infection
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INFECTION
It can be agreed that surveillance is an important epidemiological tool as it helps to
estimate the health status of the population. It is the measure of the need for intervention and is
well explained in the post. The given post very precisely highlights the significance of the
surveillance systems. It gives insights into the classification of the surveillance system that is the
active and the passive system. The post explains why more attention is given to the passive
surveillance system than the active one. This post is well supported with the relevant references.
It would have been better if it as also supported with some examples.
There are many examples that can justify the post. For instance “The Transfusion
Transmitted Injuries Surveillance System (TTISS)” established by Canada's public health agency
was effective in tracking the transfusion services in the Canadian hospitals. With the help of this
tool, a total of 3,957 adverse reactions were reported between 2006-2012. The majority of the
reactions due to transfusions led to minor injuries or no sequelae. To monitor the adverse
transfusion reactions, there is a need for further strengthening the TTIS (Mounchili et al. 2014).
Passive surveillance is mostly preferred because there are challenges with active
surveillances system. Environmental public health surveillances are complicated due to some
challenges. Poor understanding of the disease hampers the ability to link the particular
environmental causes to the adverse outcomes. The challenge is also due to multiple potential
causes of disease and inadequate measure of exposure. Public policies are influenced
disproportionately to scientific information. It is because the public alarm to the hazard of
concern is out of proportion. Further, during the environmental exposure surveillance, the
biological markers may become the critical elements (Gilbert and Cliffe 2016).

2INFECTION
References
Gilbert, R. and Cliffe, S.J., 2016. Public Health Surveillance. In Public Health Intelligence (pp.
91-110). Springer International Publishing.
Mounchili, A., Leduc, S., Archibald, C., Miller, J. and Hyson, C., 2014. A summary of the
Transfusion Transmitted Injuries Surveillance System: 2006-2012. Canada Communicable
Disease Report, 40(18), p.379.