Abstract
Equitable sharing of public health surveillance data can help prevent or mitigate the effect of infectious diseases. Equitable data sharing includes working toward more equitable sharing of the public health benefits that data sharing brings and requires the engagement of those providing the data, those interpreting and using the data generated by others, those facilitating the data-sharing process, and those deriving and contributing to the benefit. An expert consultation conducted by Chatham House outlined 7 principles to encourage the process of equitable data sharing: 1) building trust; 2) articulating the value; 3) planning for data sharing; 4) achieving quality data; 5) understanding the legal context; 6) creating data-sharing agreements; and 7) monitoring and evaluation. Sharing of public health surveillance data is best done taking into account these principles, which will help to ensure data are shared optimally and ethically, while fulfilling stakeholder expectations and facilitating equitable distribution of benefits.
Highlights
Global outbreaks, including those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola virus disease, remind us that a public health event in a single location can rapidly become a global crisis
Most countries provide routine surveillance data to multilateral agencies [4], which analyze and disseminate information on disease trends at the regional or global level. These agencies receive data from countries when the impact of a public health event crosses national borders, a standard of practice codified by the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) [5], the international legal instrument aimed at assisting the global community to prevent and respond to public health threats that have the potential to affect populations worldwide
In some low-income settings, nongovernment actors, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, private companies, or foreign medical teams, sometimes fill surveillance gaps [7], in particular during public health emergencies in which temporary, early warning surveillance systems based on syndromic surveillance are deployed in response to an increased outbreak risk [8]
Summary
Global outbreaks, including those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome, and Ebola virus disease, remind us that a public health event in a single location can rapidly become a global crisis. Sharing public health surveillance data between countries improves capacity for disease detection and response [19] and can help identify an outbreak source when national-level data cannot [20]. In addition to having value at the national level, a country’s routine public health surveillance data enable multilateral organizations to generate intelligence on specific diseases at the regional and global level.
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