Public Health Report: Active and Passive Surveillance Systems Analysis

This report examines public health surveillance systems, focusing on active and passive surveillance methods. It highlights the differences in data collection, analysis, and reporting. The report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, referencing key literature such as Baum (2016), Brownson et al. (2017), and Sarti et al. (2016). It emphasizes the completeness of active surveillance versus the ease of implementation of passive surveillance. The report also addresses limitations, such as the potential for incomplete data and the challenges of updating surveillance systems. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the strengths and weaknesses of different surveillance techniques in the context of public health practice and research.

1Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH
Public Health and Communicable Disease Control
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PUBLIC HEALTH
Public health surveillance is the systematic and continuous process of collecting,
analysing and interpreting health-related data from the population since such data is needed
to plan and implement public health practices. Surveillance might be active or passive and
depends on the manner in which data collection is done. Passive surveillance gathers data
from reporting health care workers wherein criteria are preestablished. In case of active
surveillance, criteria are also established, but the researchers responsible for maintaining the
surveillance system is to do the reporting (Baum 2016).
Passive surveillance is the most common form of the surveillance system. However,
such a survellieence has certain flaws since it is not complete and the vulnerability to such
incompleteness is noteworthy. The reason is that health workers are not optimally motivated
to report maximal data. In contrast, active surveillance is substantially more time-consuming.
Nevertheless, it is more complete when compared to passive surveillance (Brownson et al.
2017). Sarti et al. (2016) point out that it is easier to conduct passive surveillance and there is
less burden on the reporter once there is the establishment of the procedure. On the other
hand, active surveillance has a major disadvantage of using a wide range of resources. This
makes it limited to a certain time frame. In addition, passive surveillance systems have the
limitation that physicians do not report cases certain diseases and are conscious of breaching
patient confidentiality. Report’s timelessness if also affected by the delay faced in getting
results of laboratory tests. Further, bringing developments in an active surveillance system is
challenging, and negligible new forms of the system have emerged.

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PUBLIC HEALTH
References
Baum, F., 2016. The new public health (No. Ed. 4). Oxford University Press.
Brownson, R.C., Baker, E.A., Deshpande, A.D. and Gillespie, K.N., 2017. Evidence-based
public health. Oxford University Press.
Sarti, E., L’Azou, M., Mercado, M., Kuri, P., Siqueira, J.B., Solis, E., Noriega, F. and Ochiai,
R.L., 2016. A comparative study on active and passive epidemiological surveillance for
dengue in five countries of Latin America. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 44,
pp.44-49.