Surveillance for foodborne diseases: PART 1: Approaches to surveillance for foodborne diseases

Foodborne disease continues to be an important global public health problem. Surveillance is essential to efforts to measure, control, and prevent foodborne disease. Capacity is increased with the increasing complexity of the surveillance system, which can be classified on a spectrum ranging from no formal surveillance to syndromic surveillance, laboratory-based surveillance, and, finally, integrated food-chain surveillance. While syndromic surveillance is usually not specific enough for most foodborne surveillance needs, it may be useful in countries with insufficient resources to establish laboratory-based surveillance. Specific strategies for surveillance include: (1) routine surveillance for notifiable diseases, (2) subtyping of pathogens, (3) sentinel site surveillance, (4) hospital discharge records and death registration, (5) foodborne disease complaints systems, and (6) outbreak reports. This chapter describes the advantages, disadvantages, and relevance of these surveillance strategies for various public health situations and objectives. Additional uses of surveillance data, opportunities for improving foodborne disease surveillance, and efforts to enhance surveillance internationally are discussed.