Notifiable disease surveillance in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom: a comparative study

Abstract

Threats posed by new, emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases are taking a global dimension. These diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality around the world and have an influence on the economic growth and development of nations. Several evaluation studies on existing infectious disease surveillance systems (passive and/or active) have been undertaken to identify the strengths and weaknesses in order to improve surveillance activities. Research is also directed towards identifying specific factors that influence the information flow in the notification process of infectious diseases at different levels, such as completeness, timeliness, sensitivity, etc. Studies reported from Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom are very limited. Further, we rarely find any literature on comparative studies on disease surveillance systems in two different geographical locations. In this study in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data, in Jaffna (Sri Lanka) and Sheffield (UK).Participants were recruited from those who were engaged in work related to the notifiable disease surveillance system at a local level. This research paper reports the advantages and disadvantages of the existing notifiable disease surveillance systems in the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka. In addition, it recommends that receiving notifications from various other sources (including indigenous medical practitioners, public health workers, laboratories and the general public), involvement of laboratories in disease surveillance activities, and computerising the existing surveillance system for notification would enhance the completeness and timeliness of reporting. In addition to epidemiological publications at national level, this study emphasises the importance of regional publications on notifiable disease surveillance.

Challenges in Implementing Surveillance Tools of High-Income Countries (HICs) in Low Middle Income Countries (LMICs)

“…Chandrashekar K et al, 2013, published an article which discusses the experience in the northern province of Sri Lanka and mentions that due to limiting source of notification and paper-based surveillance system, the data reporting is incomplete and slow. It also discusses how the laboratories can be linked to surveillance, to improve the completeness and timeliness of data reporting [24]. This paper highlights an important issue in countries such as Sri Lanka where different types of medical practitioners are present and without an integrated information system to cover all levels of healthcare systems.…”

Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System with a Data Architecture Approach: a Systematic Review

“…Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System with a Data Architecture Approach: a Systematic Review diseases surveillance system were employed to identify the requirements of data architecture in these systems. The geographical distribution of these 35 studies was as follows: 13 studies were conducted in the USA (6,(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27) seven in Europe (19,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36) eight in Asia (31,(33)(34)(35)(36)(37) and four in Africa (38)(39)(40)(41), seven in Australia and Oceania (4,19,23,(42)(43)(44)(45), and in four studies, there was an overlap of countries. The general areas for identifying the requirements of notifiable diseases surveillance system data architecture included: 1) organizations involved in notifiable disease surveillance system, 2) surveillance system databases, 3) minimum data sets such as non-clinical (administrative) data and clin-ical (medical and diagnostic) data, 3) data standards in three groups: terminology and classification standards, structure and content standards, and data exchange standards, and 5) data quality control.…”

“…The majority of databases used in the notifiable disease surveillance system were relational ( (31,32).…”

“…The standards of data exchange, structure and content of terminology, and classification are summarized in Table 7. The criteria for controlling the quality of data obtained from the identification and reporting of notifiable situations in the studied countries comprised data completeness (2, 3, 16-18, 20-26, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 39, 41-43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51), comprehensiveness (2,17,21,30,43,49) , accuracy (16, 17, 20-22, 24, 25, 28-31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 41-45, 48, 49), consistency (3,4,22,25,26,29,31,33,35,39,45,55), adequacy (2, 3, 16, 17, 21, 28-30, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 49), being up to date (2-4, 16, 17, 21, 22, 27-30, 33, 34, 36, 39-43, 46, 48, 49, 51), and validity (2-4, 16, 17, 21, 27-30, 34, 36, 42, 43, 48, 49, 51). Some prerequisites necessary to ensure the quality of data in reporting notifiable diseases are listed in Table 8.…”

Strategic planning for eHealth in Sri Lanka

“…As we move towards a new era of eHealth in Sri Lanka, understanding strengths and weaknesses in our Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capacity as well as that of our Health Information System is very important as highlighted in two papers in this issue of the Journal (2,3) . At the same time, as Health is a devolved subject under the constitution of Sri Lanka, Provinces have the opportunity to leapfrog in ICT implementation.…”