Village Doctors’ Acceptability to a Syndromic Surveillance System in Rural China

Fei, Yang; Ding, Yan; Xu, Biao; Nie, Shaofa; Yan, Weirong; Diwan, Vinod K.; Sauerborn, Rainer; Dong, Hengjin

Emphasis has been placed on the improvement of existing surveillance systems and developing innovative new surveillance systems around the world after the events of 9/11 in 2001, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Investments have not only been made in traditional public health surveillance systems but also novel approaches such as syndromic surveillance systems. It is important to have timely, relevant evaluations of these systems to understand their usefulness. While most of the published syndromic surveillance systems evaluations looked at technical attributes of the system i.e. accuracy [1]. Other aspects such as utility, acceptability and feasibility [2] as given in the generic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluation framework [3] were not always explicitly addressed. Moreover, most of syndromic surveillance systems are established in developed countries or areas that already have other types of advanced surveillance systems. There are few public reports of the development and implementation of a syndromic surveillance system in rural China.