Overview - PH 465: Public Health Emergency Surveillance

After completing PH 465, learners will be proficient in applying principles and tools of public health surveillance and assessment to public health emergencies, including bioterrorism events and threats. Key aspects of this competency expectation include:

• describing why information is needed in emergency situations, the steps involved in obtaining it, and types of information necessary for decision making
• distinguishing among hazard, exposure, and outcome surveillance during emergencies and providing examples of each
• listing the important attributes of and the important issues to consider in initiating a post-emergency surveillance system
• describe how case definitions for health outcomes are formulated using clinical, laboratory, and epidemiologic criteria
• describing how to evaluate the usefulness of surveillance systems for disaster-specific health outcomes
• identifying appropriate sampling methods that may be applied when when collecting data for surveillance systems an discussing their strengths and limitations
• distinguishing between exposure and outcome variables in emergencies and disasters and providing examples for specific emergency events
• explaining the relevance of prevention as it applies to emergency event and disaster epidemiology
  

This course involves several learning activities; see the PH 465 Exercises document for detailed instructions.

• Content: the content for this course is provided in the specific readings and other resources identified in the PH 465 Exercises document.
• Office Hours: This messaging system was created to handle questions and announcements. Visit this site to introduce yourself to the course as well as to help you get familiar with the workings of the system.
• Exercises:
  1. Individual Exercise: submit the completed individual exercise under the link "Submit Assignments". Your instructor will provide feedback by replying to your posting
  2. Conferencing Exercise: add your contribution to this multi-learner conferencing exercise.
  3. Assessment Quiz: complete and submit the multiple choice assessment quiz for PH 465.

The instructor will evaluate your responses to the various exercises and indicate when you have successfully completed PH 465. For learners interested in going beyond the basics, a list of additional resources, including readings and other materials, is available through the Additional Resources link. This list emphasizes the most up-to-date materials. Information on related courses is provided in the PH 460 Course Series Syllabus. PH 466 (or any other course) can begin whenever you wish, so feel free to begin the readings that are identified for the course that you plan to take next.

PH 465 Overview last revised July 1, 2004 (bturnock)