The Past, Present, and Future of Public Health Surveillance

Table 3

Some major milestones in the historical development of public health surveillance.

Year	Place	Event
3180 B.C.	Egypt	First recorded epidemic: “A great pestilence” [7, 9].
460 B.C.–370 B.C.	Greece	Father of medicine: Hippocrates wrote about the endemic state and epidemic state of disease [25].
1348	Venice	First public health action that can be attributed to surveillance: during the “Black Death”, three guardians of public health for the Republic of Venice prohibited ships with infected passengers from docking at the port [26, 27].
1532	London	First systematic ongoing collection of surveillance data: England started collecting the London Bills of Mortality [28].
1662	London	First comprehensive analysis and interpretation of mortality data: John Graunt, based on an analysis of the Bills of Mortality, published the “Natural and political observations made upon the bills of mortality” [29].
1665	London	First epidemic field investigation: during the “Great Plague of London”, the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the weekly number of deaths and made observations on the extent and progression of the epidemic [7].
1741	Rhode Island	First legislation for surveillance: the American colony of Rhode Island required by law that tavern-keepers report contagious disease among their patrons [30].
1766	Germany	First link of surveillance to policy: Johann Peter Frank encouraged linking surveillance to public health policy, such as school health and public water and sewage treatment [30].
1788–1799	France	First declaration that public health is the responsibility of the state: leaders of the French Revolution declared health of the people to be the responsibility of the state [27].
1834	England	First link of surveillance to legislation: Sir Edwin Chadwick used surveillance data to demonstrate the link between poverty and disease [31]. This led to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.
1838	England	Founder of the modern concept of surveillance: William Farr was appointed as the first Compiler of Abstract (i.e. medical statistician) and created a surveillance system that has earned him recognition as the founder of the modern concept of surveillance [25, 32].
1850	United States	First link of surveillance to statewide public health infrastructure: Lemuel Shattuck published a report based on a survey of sanitary conditions in Massachusetts and recommended a census and collection of health data [31].
1854	London	Father of modern epidemiology: John Snow is widely regarded as the father of modern epidemiology for his work in 1854 in tracing a deadly cholera outbreak to a contaminated water pump on Broad Street [33].
1874	United States	First systematic reporting of infectious diseases: Massachusetts State Board of Health instituted a plan for physicians to provide weekly reports on prevalent diseases, using a standard postcard-reporting format [34, 35].
1888	Italy	Mandatory reporting of eleven communicable diseases and death certificates [27].
1890	United Kingdom	Compulsory reporting of infectious diseases [36].
1893	United Kingdom	Publication of international list of causes of death by the International Statistical Institute (founded in London in 1885) [27].
1911	United Kingdom	Use of National Health Insurance data for surveillance [27].
1925	USA	All states participated in national morbidity reporting after the severe poliomyelitis epidemic of 1916 and influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 [37].
1935	USA	First national health survey [27, 36].
1943	Denmark	First registry, the Danish Cancer Registry [27].
1943	United Kingdom	First Sickness Survey [27].
1965	Geneva	Establishment of an Epidemiological Surveillance Unit in the Division of Communicable Diseases at World Health Organization headquarters [38].
1966	Geneva	First publication of Communicable Disease Surveillance Reports by World Health Organization [27].
1967	United Kingdom and the Netherlands	Development of General Practitioners' Sentinel Systems [27].
1968	Geneva	The 21st World Health Assembly established surveillance as an essential function of public health practice [39].