Abstract

WALDMAN, Eliseu Alves. Usos da vigilância e da monitorização em saúde pública. Inf. Epidemiol. Sus [online]. 1998, vol.7, n.3, pp.7-26. ISSN 0104-1673.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/S0104-16731998000300002.

The objective of the present text is to present surveillance and monitoring as two different public health tools. Surveillance is characterised by a high degree of development, leading to a precise delimitation of objectives, methods, sources of data, and evaluation procedures. According to some authors, these specific features give surveillance the autonomy of a Public Health Discipline. Surveillance is one of the applications of epidemiology in public health, and is concerned exclusively with the follow-up of specific health adverse events in a community, while epidemiology, either as a method or as a public health practice, is concerned with the health-disease process in populations and its determining factors. The most relevant differences between surveillance and monitoring are that surveillance is one of the applications of epidemiology in public health and analyses exclusively the behaviour of health adverse events in a community, while monitoring follows only indicators, it isn't an exclusive application of epidemiology, and may be used in different activities such as monitoring economic, demographic, environmental quality indicators, among others. Both, surveillance and monitoring have three obligatory components: information, analysis, and the widespread dissemination of the information analysed to all that need it.

Keywords : Public Health Surveillance; Monitoring; Epidemiology in Health Care Services.

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