A standardized process for developing a national notifiable diseases list in a pacific island setting.
The authors describe an adapted method, originally developed for infectious disease resource allocation, for prioritizing infectious diseases for inclusion in a Pacific island nation's National Notifiable Diseases List. Using a process that was systematic, transparent, objective, and addressed multiple criteria, a panel of stakeholders judged candidate diseases against 12 objective criteria and arrived at weighted scores for the diseases, which were then ranked. The result was the successful creation of a list of 22 urgently notifiable conditions. However, the process was only incrementally more useful than the use of consensus, and certain anomalies necessitated a reality check and adjustment of the final results. The process described herein may be more useful in settings where there is wide disagreement among stakeholders; it also appears more useful for its original purpose-prioritizing public health resource allocation for infectious disease control. The modifications discussed may make it more relevant to notifiable disease selection.
Pavlin
Boris Igor
BI
World Health Organization, Palikir, Federated States of Micronesia. pavlinb@wpro.who.int
Kool
Jacob L
JL
Samo
Marcus H
MH
Gerstel
Lisanne
L
D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D010139:Pacific Islands / Q000453:epidemiology; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D012015:Reference Standards