Handbook

Disease surveillance and population health monitoring represents one of the most important tools for public health, for early disease detection and prevention, and the monitoring and evaluation. Early detection of and rapid response to a public health threat has huge potential to save lives and costs from preventing hospitalisations and deaths. This course provides an overview of different types of surveillance systems and the sources of data that are used by such systems to generate useful information to inform evidence-based public health action. Students learn to assess the challenges and limitations associated with different types of public health surveillance and develop the skills to examine the tools and approaches that can be used to improve their effectiveness. The course looks at principles of disease prevention more broadly.  Public health prevention measures are discussed including immunisation and screening, using case studies for both communicable and non-communicable diseases. The role of epidemiological and social factors is also considered.