Innovations in public health surveillance: updates from a forum convened by the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, 2 and 3 February 2022

Abstract

In the 2 years since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) there has been an unprecedented collective effort from the academic, public, and private sectors to advance surveillance for pandemic preparedness and response. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created momentum that will define the future of public health intelligence. On 2 and 3 February 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence convened a meeting of a small group of surveillance innovators to share insights and approaches about their initiatives and future directions. The meeting served as an opportunity for participants to share updates about their work, to explore potential for collaboration, exchange ideas, crossfertilise our work and discuss challenges in the field of surveillance. Although the group of attendees was not geographically representative of the global surveillance community, the meeting was the first in a planned series of exchanges convened by the WHO Pandemic Hub that will generate dialogue among global thought leaders and new voices in the surveillance community. In this first convening we discussed several themes, including what is meaningful collaboration for success; how to bring the public back into public health; what are individual-centred approaches; how new kinds of data have new privacy concerns; how govern- ment structures affect the functioning of surveillance systems; how to inform the decisionmaking process; cross-scaling and down-scaling tools and technologies; investing in human talent and future practition- ers; and achieving sustainability into surveillance. In this meeting report, we summarise the discussions on innovations in public health surveillance and provide a list with references and links to the organisations and initiatives represented at the meeting.