Question

1) How can data collection for notifiable diseases be improved? a. Why is tracking vital statistics so important? b. How does calculating Years of Potential Life Lost change the way we think about community health efforts?

Answer 1

1) Notifiable diseases: any disease that is required by law to be reported to the authorities of a particular country. The outbreak of such diseases is of national importance and needs to be reported in order to control the occurrence  of such diseases.

examples of notifiable diseases: anthrax, botulism, brucellosis, cholera, diphtheria etc

• the data collected for notifiable diseases plays a very important role in order to protect a large population from a possible outbreak.
• data collection may be improved in the following ways:

1. information from all electronic and paper-based notifiable disease reports submitted by both providers and laboratories should be taken into consideration
2. National organisations should work closely with state and local health organisations.
3. develop and implement consistent standards, tools, training, and technology to help ensure that disease reporting systems are integrated within each state.
4. resources to support reporting jurisdictions – state, local, territorial, and tribal health departments – to help them implement integrated and interoperable public health surveillance systems.
5. People should be made aware so that diseases are reported by the local population as early as possible.
6. regular, frequent, and timely information regarding individual cases is considered necessary for the prevention and control of the disease or condition.

a. Vital statistics: According to N.B. Ryder, they “provide cumulative summaries for successive time periods of population movements like birth, death, migration, marriage and marital dissolution as well as demographic and other relevant characteristics of the individuals involved in these events.”

• tracking vital statistics is important due to the following reasons:

1. For an individual: documents such as birth certificate are important for identification and admission etc.
2. for legal use: For instance, a death certificate is an important legal document for the settlement of property of the deceased person, the claim of his/her insurance policy, etc.
3. health and family planning: causes of deaths, and the mortality rates of different categories help in assessing the health condition of the people.

   Accordingly, the state can formulate such health programmes as malaria eradication, polio and small pox immunisation, tuberculosis, etc. In keeping with the requirements of the population, the government can open hospitals, maternity and child welfare centres, etc.

4. social conditions: birth rate, death rate, maternal mortality rate etc throw a light on the social condition of the people of the area.

5. For administration and planning

6. for the nation: help in analysing population trends, formulating policies, knowing requirements of the people etc.

b. Years of potential life lost: it is the estimate of the years a person would live if not died prematurely.

calculating this changes the way we think about community health efforts in the following way:

1. It gives an insight into the mortality rate of any population and helps us enforce a better health plan in place.
2. It helps us know about the diseases in any population and thus helps us strengthen our medical facilities.
3. It helps us prevent premature deaths to some extent.
4. non communicable diseases such as Cancer, Diabetes, Heart diseases etc could be prevented.
5. Dividing up resources adequately.