American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 154, No. 4 : 385
Copyright © 2001 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
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From the Editor
Charles V. Chapin, long-time health officer of Providence, Rhode Island, and pioneer epidemiologist (one of the founders of the American Epidemiological Society), is said to have examined every death certificate filed in his jurisdiction during his more than 40-year tenure during the early decades of the 20th century. This practice was an early application of the concept of surveillance, giving Chapin an insight, albeit incomplete, into the burden and character of the diseases affecting the community's population. When we claim that epidemiology is the basic science of public health, do we not imply, at least in large part, that epidemiology supplies the data on which to assess the burden of disease in a defined population, its trends over time, and its epidemiologic characteristics? Clearly, the effectiveness of our programmatic interventions depends on the accuracy and completeness of these assessments that, in turn, depend on the quality of the surveillance systems that are being applied. Modern concepts and techniques of surveillance have come a long way since Chapin's crude approach, but their objectives are the same! In this issue, George Rutherford reviews an important contribution to the subject.
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