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Next:Hantavirus Up: Model-Based Mining of Previous:Introduction
Preliminary Each year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a report on the Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States [1], which contains the official statistics for the yearly reported
occurrence of nationally notifiable diseases in the United States. These statistics are collected and compiled from reports of the Nationally Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS), which is
operated by CDC in collaboration with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). As of January 1, 1996, 52 infectious diseases were designated as notifiable at the national level (by the
United States). A notifiable disease is one for which regular, frequent and timely information regarding individual cases is considered necessary for the prevention and control of the disease. This process was
first started in 1878, when Congress authorized the US Marine Hospital Services to collect morbidity reports from US consuls overseas on cholera, smallpox, plague and yellow fever. In 1893, the process
began to include reports from state and municipal authorities. In 1912, state and territorial health authorities, in conjunction with the Public Health Service (PHS), began to use telegrams to report 10
infectious diseases from 19 states. The reporting process expanded to 28 infectious diseases and all the states in 1928.
The list of nationally notifiable diseases changes from time to time, and varies slightly from state to state. All states generally report the internationally quarantinable diseases (i.e., cholera, plague, and yellow
fever) in compliance with the World Health Organization's International Health Regulations. In the following discussion, hantavirus is used as an example to illustrate the main issues that need to be
addressed in environmental epidemiology. Next:Hantavirus Up: Model-Based Mining of Previous:Introduction |
