Event-based surveillance for non-communicable diseases

Abstract

Event-based surveillance is an epidemiological surveillance which for more rapid detection of abnormal event. In general, event-based surveillance system was applied mainly for communicable disease. To suitably apply the surveillance to non-communicable disease (NCDs), disease occurrence mechanism, determinants and also transmission mode of NCDs should be clarified. The 2 main components of event-based surveillance for NCDs are (1) health and behavior of human and (2) The environmental component including business marketing, culture, festival, and natural disaster. To earlier detect and rapidly response an abnormal event, the surveillance system should include community network or civil society and the clear operational guideline should be developed. There are 3 existing main surveillance network related to NCDs in Thailand including Surveillance Rapid Response Network (SRRT), student network for food and drug safety surveillance and civil society network who responsible for alcohol act violation surveillance. However, the SRRT mainly focus only on the event of communicable disease, the NCDs concept just has been introduced into the network for couple of year. Ministry of Public Health has concerned of event detection by people, so Department of Disease Control opened hotline so that people can immediately notify when they found any abnormal events. However, there is currently no government body that is responsible to the whole NCD event-based surveillance and no clear linkage between civil society network and government. Therefore, Thailand should develop NCD event-based surveillance system which systemically link to community and civil society and should develop standard tools or guideline which cover all processes of event detection, data management, reporting, and how to investigate NCD event. The human capacity improvement strategies to better support the NCD event-based surveillance in all levels should be performed.