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Table 1 Classification of potential surveillance sector gaps with illustrative examples

From: A surveillance sector review applied to infectious diseases at a country level

Gap name

Description

Example (from the current NZ situation)

A. Leadership & resource gaps

Surveillance leadership and organisational gap

Lack of sector leadership, coordination, mandate, and supportive organisational structures

No plan for prioritising the development of public health surveillance and limited coordination of existing systems

Surveillance workforce gap

Lack of trained workforce in critical areas, such as epidemiology

Shortage of epidemiologists and data analysts to review and interpret findings from surveillance systems

Surveillance resource gap

Lack of sector resources in critical areas, such as laboratory services and information technology

Limited information technology development resources for public health sector

B. Design/structural gaps

Surveillance system gap

No surveillance system is established for important disease events, upstream hazards, determinants or interventions

No surveillance of most common syndromes in primary care (eg, gastroenteritis)

Surveillance scope gap

A surveillance system is established, but its type, range of events covered, and scope of information it is designed to collect does not meet its purpose

Surveillance of hepatitis B and C is largely restricted to acute illness rather than chronic infectious cases

Surveillance coverage gap

A surveillance system is established, but does not cover all of the necessary populations or settings

Absenteeism surveillance and emergency department syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness is, in each case, confined to only one region in NZ

C. Operation/functional gaps

Surveillance performance gap

An established system doesn't meet necessary requirements for key attributes, such as timeliness, sensitivity and validity

Reporting of hospital discharges and deaths from infectious diseases is complete but not timely, limiting the value of the information for disease control

Surveillance integration gap

Surveillance systems exist but do not link information in a way that supports optimal prevention and control measures

Food and water borne disease surveillance is not routinely linked to drinking water distribution zones so limiting its capacity to detect water treatment failures

Surveillance analysis and communication gap

Surveillance systems operate but do not analyse and disseminate information in a way that supports effective action

Some national data on hospital-acquired infections is collected for health sector monitoring purposes but is not provided to infectious disease practitioners or policy makers