Concepts and Methods in Infectious Disease Surveillance

Infectious disease surveillance has evolved at an extraordinarypace during the past several decades, and continues to do so. It isincreasingly used to inform public health practice in addition toits use as a tool for early detection of epidemics. It is thereforecrucial that students of public health and epidemiology have asound understanding of the concepts and principles that underpinmodern surveillance of infectious disease. Written by leaders in the field, who have vast hands-onexperience in conducting surveillance and teaching applied publichealth, Concepts and Methods in Infectious DiseaseSurveillance is comprised of four sections. The first sectionprovides an overview, a description of systems used by publichealth jurisdictions in the United States and legal considerationsfor surveillance. The second section presents chapters on majorprogram-area or disease-specific surveillance systems, includingthose that monitor bacterial infections, foodborne diseases,healthcare-associated infections, and HIV/AIDS. The followingsection is devoted to methods for conducting surveillance and alsoapproaches for data analysis. A concluding section summarizescommunication of surveillance findings, including the use oftraditional and social media, in addition to showcasing lessonslearned from the New York City Department of Health’sexperience in surveillance and epidemiology training. This comprehensive new book covers major topics at an introductoryto intermediate level, and will be an excellent resource forinstructors. Suitable for use in graduate level courses in publichealth, human and veterinary medicine, and in undergraduateprograms in public-health-oriented disciplines, Concepts andMethods in Infectious Disease Surveillance is also a usefulprimer for frontline public health practitioners, hospitalepidemiologists, infection control practitioners, laboratorians inpublic health settings, infectious disease researchers, and medicaland public health informaticians interested in a concise overviewof infectious disease surveillance.