The Center for Disease Control (CDC) currently surveils the entire U.S. using a wide range of technology systems. Their various data sources are from the Veterans Administration, Electronic Health Records (EHRs), FDA, Telemedicine, Vaccine Adverse Event Systems (VAERS), and more. This surveillance started in 1990 and continues on a daily bases. The CDC collects data for public health safety.
Surveillance Explained
“Case surveillance is foundational to public health practice. It helps us to understand diseases and their spread and determine appropriate actions to control outbreaks. Case surveillance occurs each time public health agencies at the local, state, or national levels collect information about a case or person diagnosed with a disease or condition that poses a serious health threat to Americans. These diseases and conditions include:
- infectious diseases, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19);
- foodborne outbreaks, such as E.coli; and
- noninfectious conditions, such as lead poisoning.
Health departments also notify CDC about certain conditions so we can track them for the whole country. CDC monitors about 120 of these notifiable diseases and conditions at the national level. This important step helps protect the health of individual communities and the nation. Following standard case definitions, case surveillance captures information that public health officials can use to understand where diseases are occurring, how they can be prevented, and which groups are most heavily impacted.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021, September 29). What is case surveillance? Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved February 17, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/nndss/about/index.html
CalRedie Modernizing Disease Surveillance in California
The CDC and Epidemiology Laboratory Capacity (ELC) support, fund, and recognize California’s new reporting surveillance system called CalRedie. CalRedie gathers and report epidemics or pandemics data. See video