Comprehensive effective and efficient global public health surveillance

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Global Health Security
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Global public health surveillance is currently fragmented, inefficient, and slow to detect and respond to significant health events.
• Inadequate resources, training, and a lack of a global consensus policy and strategy impede effective surveillance.
• Three key movements—revised International Health Regulations (IHR[2005]), advancements in information technology, and recognition of shared interests between security and public health—are poised to transform surveillance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose an end-state vision for comprehensive, effective, and efficient global, multiple-hazard public health surveillance.
• To outline a pathway forward to achieve this vision by addressing existing disparities and challenges.
• To reconcile the tension between individual rights to privacy and access to public health information with national stewardship.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual framework development based on identified transformative movements and prerequisites.
• Analysis of challenges to global surveillance, including trust, transparency, governance, and financial support.
• Proposal of an interoperable, global public health grid as the mechanism for achieving the end-state vision.

Main Results:

• The proposed end-state is universal, global access to interoperable public health information when and where it is needed.
• Achieving this requires addressing disparities in technical, logistic, governance, and financial capacities.
• Key challenges include fostering trust, ensuring transparency, establishing global data governance, and securing sustainable financial support.

Conclusions:

• An interoperable global public health grid, guided by shared principles and a defined governance structure, can realize the vision of comprehensive surveillance.
• Establishing a global forum is crucial for guiding consensus governance for 21st-century public health information sharing.
• This transformation necessitates political will, policy development, resource allocation, and collaborative efforts between public health and security sectors.