Such integration could occur across diseases or between disease and upstream hazards, determinants and interventions.
Such reviews also have the potential to identify important surveillance gaps, improve the organisation of disparate surveillance systems and to focus attention on upstream hazards, determinants and interventions.
The second category is design and structural gaps, which aim to identify important disease events, hazards, determinants or interventions that are not covered by surveillance systems.
Here we attempt to extend the concept of integrated surveillance to an entire disease sector including associated health hazards, determinants and interventions.
For the 12 coherent categories of infectious diseases examined, we identified 91 systems and related activities for surveillance of diseases, hazards, determinants and interventions.
It may also identify gaps in these systems and whether or not important diseases, hazards, determinants, and interventions are under surveillance at all.
Furthermore, it is also unique in encompassing upstream hazards, determinants and interventions along with the more traditional emphasis on disease and health outcomes.
Some examples of potential gaps are listed below to illustrate the value of this systematic description: Potential surveillance systems gaps: These gaps occur when there is no surveillance system established for important disease events, upstream hazards, determinants or interventions.
Prevalence surveys - "surveillance based on repeated surveys to measure the prevalence over time of a particular disease or injury, health state, health hazard, health determinant or intervention use in a specified population or setting".
Most of those involved in surveillance of upstream hazards and determinants would not define their work as infectious disease surveillance.
