Surveillance

How it is used

A key word in every public health agency. Passive surveillance relies on routine reports from doctors and labs; active surveillance means staff go out and look for cases. You set up, strengthen or carry out surveillance, and a disease can be under surveillance.

Example sentences

1. Surveillance data showed flu activity rising two weeks earlier than usual.

2. The ministry is strengthening surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in hospitals.

Common collocations

• disease surveillance
• active surveillance
• passive surveillance
• surveillance system
• surveillance data

Related terms

• notifiable diseaseA disease that doctors and laboratories are required by law to report to public health authorities whenever they diagnose or suspect it.
• case definitionA standard set of criteria, such as symptoms, lab results, time and place, used to decide whether a person should be counted as a case of a particular disease.
• sentinel surveillanceSurveillance based on a selected group of reporting sites, such as certain clinics or laboratories, that collect high-quality data to follow trends rather than count every case.
• underreportingThe situation when the number of cases or deaths reported to health authorities is lower than the true number, for example because people do not seek care or doctors do not notify.
• syndromic surveillanceSurveillance that tracks groups of symptoms or other health-related signals, such as fever and cough, before a lab diagnosis is made, in order to detect unusual activity early.

More terms: Surveillance and Reporting

• case
• disease registry