Economic and Policy Justification for Public Health Surveillance

This chapter provides an economic and policy rationale for public health surveillance. It outlines the justification of surveillance in terms of its uses and then examines the market failures, or positive and negative externalities that are created or exist that do not allow us to rely on the free market to produce efficient and effective public health surveillance. The chapter reviews the types of goods that fit into our general economic framework and concludes that public good and market failure arguments support public funding of public health surveillance.