The Past, Present, and Future of Public Health Surveillance

Table 6

Comparison of definitions of public health surveillance over time.

Year	1662	1687	1963	1968	1986	1988	1998	2001	2006	2012
	Graunt	Petty	Langmuir	WHO	CDC	Thacker and Berkelman	Choi	CDC	PHAC	WHO
(1) Name
Natural and political observations	✓
Political arithmetic		✓
Surveillance				✓			✓			✓
Disease surveillance			✓
Health surveillance									✓
Epidemiologic surveillance				✓	✓		✓
Public health surveillance						✓		✓		✓
(2) Components
Ongoing			✓		✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Systematic			✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Population-based							✓
Data collection	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Mortality data	✓	✓	✓
Morbidity data			✓
Epidemiologic data				✓
Health data					✓		✓	✓	✓	✓
Other relevant data			✓				✓
Data analysis	✓	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Interpretation	✓		✓		✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
Dissemination			✓		✓	✓	✓	✓		✓
(3) Purpose
Curiosities concerning the waxing and waning of diseases	✓
Disease control		✓		✓	✓	✓
Public health practice					✓					✓
Public health action							✓	✓	✓	✓
Planning, implementation, and evaluation of practice				✓	✓		✓			✓

Sources of surveillance definitions:
Graunt [29]; Petty [66]; Langmuir [67]; WHO [69]; CDC [71]; Thacker and Berkelman [30]; Choi [74]; CDC [75]; PHAC [77]; WHO [78–80].