Occupational and Environmental Health Surveillance
This chapter describes various approaches to occupational and environmental health surveillance. It begins by defining public health surveillance and the basic principles of surveillance, emphazing the critical link between data and action and the importance of using surveillance findings to improve worker and community health. It describes case-based surveillance, population-based surveillance, rate-based surveillance, and hazard surveillance. It describes surveillance systems, including those based on physician reporting and on laboratory reporting. The chapter provides a description of the major occupational health surveillance systems and environmental health surveillance activities in the United States, and includes examples of how data have been translated to action. It concludes in identifying some of the surveillance challenges and opportunities related to 21st century changes in the workplace, the ambient environment, and information technology.