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Abstract
In this thesis I describe four applied public health research projects that have contributed to strengthening public health emergency preparedness through advancing disease surveillance capabilities and workforce development. As disease surveillance is a vital part of both response to public health emergencies and planning and preparedness for public health emergencies, the four chapters describing discrete projects come together within the overlapping themes of the thesis of strengthening public health emergency preparedness and enhancing surveillance.
In Chapter 2, I describe the development of two new online training courses in public health emergency management. Since they were launched in 2011, they have been part of the NSW Health program for securing the required competencies of its workforce to plan for and respond to public health emergencies. This chapter also describes an evaluation of the courses.
Chapter 3 describes a project undertaken in response to the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in 2009. It includes a review of Australian and international syndromic surveillance systems for influenza-like illness followed by a description of a new surveillance tool I developed, informed by the review, as well as a comparative evaluation of the new tool. This tool, now called Electronic General Practice Surveillance (eGPS), is part of NSW Health routine influenza surveillance.
In Chapter 4, I expand on the methods used in Chapter 3 and evaluate a component of a surveillance system currently in use in NSW. I assess the ability and accuracy of the Public Health Real-time Emergency Department Surveillance System (PHREDSS) to identify mental health-related visits to hospital emergency departments.
In Chapter 5, I present a proposal for a framework for monitoring and evaluation of the NSW Health HIV strategy, NSW HIV Strategy 2012–2015: A new era. In this chapter, I address the complex task of monitoring HIV transmission in the community.
In the discussion chapter, I draw together the combined impact and findings of the applied research studies presented in Chapters 2 to 5. I also identify further opportunities to use the findings of the separate studies and professional projects as platforms for further work in the area of public health preparedness and public health intelligence.