Tell Me More Series: Public Health Surveillance

What is Public Health Surveillance?
Public health surveillance is the ongoing collection, analysis, interpretation and sharing of health-related information to understand population health trends and inform public health action.

Public health surveillance draws on information from many sources, including laboratory testing, reports of infectious diseases, health care data, environmental monitoring, and information shared by communities. It focuses on patterns and trends across populations rather than monitoring specific individuals.

How Surveillance Helps Protect and Improve Health
Public health surveillance helps public health organizations understand the health needs of communities and populations. By identifying emerging issues and tracking changes over time, it provides insights into what's working and where action is needed most.

Surveillance data can be used to detect and respond to outbreaks, monitor trends in chronic diseases, identify differences in health outcomes between groups, and improve the quality of public health programs, policies and planning.

Building Trust
PHO recognizes that the term surveillance can carry different meanings for different communities. For some, it may be associated with negative experiences or harms linked to unwanted observation, control or misuse of data.

PHO views trust as an important part of public health surveillance. Communities have an interest in how information about them is collected, used and interpreted, and how it contributes to public health action. Building trust means being open about these processes and ensuring that information is used in ways that benefit the people and communities it represents.

PHO is committed to protecting privacy and confidentiality. Information collected through public health surveillance is handled responsibly and in accordance with applicable privacy requirements.