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. 2012 Aug 5;2012:875253. doi: 10.6064/2012/875253

Table 3.

Some major milestones in the historical development of public health surveillance.

Year Place Event
3180 B.C. Egypt First recorded epidemic: “A great pestilence” [7, 9].

460 B.C.–370 B.C. Greece Father of medicine: Hippocrates wrote about the endemic state and epidemic state of disease [25].

1348 Venice First public health action that can be attributed to surveillance: during the “Black Death”, three guardians of public health for the Republic of Venice prohibited ships with infected passengers from docking at the port [26, 27].

1532 London First systematic ongoing collection of surveillance data: England started collecting the London Bills of Mortality [28].

1662 London First comprehensive analysis and interpretation of mortality data: John Graunt, based on an analysis of the Bills of Mortality, published the “Natural and political observations made upon the bills of mortality” [29].

1665 London First epidemic field investigation: during the “Great Plague of London”, the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the weekly number of deaths and made observations on the extent and progression of the epidemic [7].

1741 Rhode Island First legislation for surveillance: the American colony of Rhode Island required by law that tavern-keepers report contagious disease among their patrons [30].

1766 Germany First link of surveillance to policy: Johann Peter Frank encouraged linking surveillance to public health policy, such as school health and public water and sewage treatment [30].

1788–1799 France First declaration that public health is the responsibility of the state: leaders of the French Revolution declared health of the people to be the responsibility of the state [27].

1834 England First link of surveillance to legislation: Sir Edwin Chadwick used surveillance data to demonstrate the link between poverty and disease [31]. This led to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834.

1838 England Founder of the modern concept of surveillance: William Farr was appointed as the first Compiler of Abstract (i.e. medical statistician) and created a surveillance system that has earned him recognition as the founder of the modern concept of surveillance [25, 32].

1850 United States First link of surveillance to statewide public health infrastructure: Lemuel Shattuck published a report based on a survey of sanitary conditions in Massachusetts and recommended a census and collection of health data [31].

1854 London Father of modern epidemiology: John Snow is widely regarded as the father of modern epidemiology for his work in 1854 in tracing a deadly cholera outbreak to a contaminated water pump on Broad Street [33].

1874 United States First systematic reporting of infectious diseases: Massachusetts State Board of Health instituted a plan for physicians to provide weekly reports on prevalent diseases, using a standard postcard-reporting format [34, 35].

1888 Italy Mandatory reporting of eleven communicable diseases and death certificates [27].

1890 United Kingdom Compulsory reporting of infectious diseases [36].

1893 United Kingdom Publication of international list of causes of death by the International Statistical Institute (founded in London in 1885) [27].

1911 United Kingdom Use of National Health Insurance data for surveillance [27].

1925 USA All states participated in national morbidity reporting after the severe poliomyelitis epidemic of 1916 and influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 [37].

1935 USA First national health survey [27, 36].

1943 Denmark First registry, the Danish Cancer Registry [27].

1943 United Kingdom First Sickness Survey [27].

1965 Geneva Establishment of an Epidemiological Surveillance Unit in the Division of Communicable Diseases at World Health Organization headquarters [38].

1966 Geneva First publication of Communicable Disease Surveillance Reports by World Health Organization [27].

1967 United Kingdom and the Netherlands Development of General Practitioners' Sentinel Systems [27].

1968 Geneva The 21st World Health Assembly established surveillance as an essential function of public health practice [39].