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Division of Reproductive Health: Activities—Reproductive Health
Surveillance |
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Public health surveillance is the ongoing systematic collection, analysis,
and interpretation of outcome-specific data for use in the planning,
implementation, and evaluation of public health practice. The information
collected by these systems is used for assessing public health status,
defining public health priorities, evaluating programs, and stimulating
research. The public health approach to problem solving includes using
surveillance data to identify problems and assessing the effectiveness of
interventions.
Reproductive health surveillance has primarily been used to monitor the
risks of reproductive complications. Maternal and infant mortality have been
the primary outcomes of interest. However, today we monitor many
intermediate morbidity outcomes, which may be precursors to mortality, and
useful as indicators of societal health.
In 1989, WHO convened a working group to discuss how to improve research on
reproductive morbidity. The group concluded that long-term consequences of
pregnancy and childbirth were understudied. As a result of this working
group’s efforts and due to new legislative mandates, current surveillance
activities were enhanced and new surveillance activities were instituted to
monitor the risks of pregnancy.
CDC's Division of Reproductive Health (DRH) has surveillance systems that monitor
both morbidity and mortality related to pregnancy. DRH conducts surveillance
with both passive and active surveillance or reproductive health conditions
including surveillance of
adolescent pregnancy;
assisted reproductive
technology; the incidence, characteristics, and risk factors associated with ectopic pregnancy; the number and characteristics of women who have had a
hysterectomy in the United States; deaths from pregnancy and childbirth, and the number and
characteristics of women obtaining
legal induced abortions in the United
States.
The major surveillance systems in CDC include the
Pregnancy Risk Assessment
Monitoring System (PRAMS), the Assisted Reproductive Technology system
(ART), and the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System (PMSS). These systems
are done on a routine and continuing basis. Other surveillance analyses are
conducted on a less routine basis by analyzing secondary data on such topics
as ectopic pregnancy and hysterectomy.
CDC compiles information on hysterectomies by using data from the
National Hospital Discharge Survey. This survey, which collects data on
discharges from U.S. hospitals, provides population-based estimates of U.S.
hysterectomy rates. Data from national hysterectomy surveillance can be used
to increase understanding of the relative public health importance of the
conditions that lead to hysterectomy, identify changes in clinical practice,
and assist in setting biomedical research priorities.
The role of surveillance has been expanded over the past year to include public health informatics. Public health informatics
is being
used to conduct more careful evaluations of surveillance systems in place,
and those yet to be developed, in terms of efficiency and output. Public
health informatics is a new scientific field combining the technical
knowledge of information systems with the need to analyze data for decision
making. By weaving in the use of informatics with surveillance, reproductive
health surveillance will be evolving in the coming years to address more
complex health issues and conditions.
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Page last reviewed: 2/2/09
Page last modified: 2/07/07
Content source: Division
of Reproductive Health,
National Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion |
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