Please respond to this discussion post
What aspects of health would you monitor and what data will you collect?
When it comes to surveillance of a water system for water borne illnesses one important factor to monitor is place. The place or region that reports the most occurrence of waterborne illness cases such as cholera or typhoid by healthcare providers may be an indicator on where the source of the problem is. While increased cases in a certain place does not directly mean that the source of the problem is also in that place, it could be the vital step in determining the source of the illness. The water supply of a city or country is essential to the health of its citizens as in one way or the other they will be consuming this water in their lifetime, therefore surveillance on such issues is important.
Some important data to collect in order to monitor the effects of new and expanded water systems on health in the city overtime includes a continuous survey of the incidence of water borne illnesses such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea amongst a population. It is important to gather information in a timely fashion which determines if we are dealing with an outbreak or the expected number of cases. I think I would also be important to carry out Surveys taken across locals of a community. It is important to get their personal responses which may hold information that cannot be collected from hospitals such as people’s day to day experiences with water in the community (the smell, taste, quality etc.).
How would you know if a new or altered water system caused more or less disease?
An outbreak or increase in waterborne diseases and similar symptoms amongst people who have a water source in common could point to a potential contamination of the water from their common source. If health care providers report increased numbers in incidence of waterborne illnesses than expected especially in a common region or that have a water source in common, then we could look at that source as potentially a source of the problem like John Snow’s hypothesis on the cholera outbreak in London in 1854.
