Epidemiology and Public Health Surveillance: Exploring New Perspectives and Improving Healthcare Outcomes

Dear Colleagues,

Understanding the epidemiology of common diseases is essential for disease prevention, early detection, and providing timely treatment. Epidemiological principles and methods are indispensable in the current era of evidence-based medicine. The healthcare applications of epidemiological research and the translation of epidemiological findings into public health practices is of particular interest today. Modern epidemiology, due to its interdisciplinary nature, uses a large amount of data—from molecular and clinical to environmental and digital information—to identify and target risk factors in populations and to reduce the occurrence of diseases with appropriate prevention strategies.  

We are pleased to invite authors to present their contribution(s) to the Special Issue “Epidemiology and Public Health Surveillance: Exploring New Perspectives and Improving Healthcare Outcomes”. Taking into account the multidisciplinary approach of the Healthcare journal, in this Special Issue, we wish to cover a broad area of research—from theoretical concepts to the practical and applied methods of epidemiology on emerging trends and outbreaks, as well as identifying at-risk populations and research on improving disease management and patient outcome.  

Our objective is to respond to the needs of the scientific community for robust research and the critical appraisal of the qualitative and quantitative evidence on the trends, etiology, prevention and prognosis of diseases in the age of sustainable research.  

In this Special Issue, we welcome the submission of high-quality original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and study protocols on clinical trials, focusing on important topics in the epidemiology of communicable and noncommunicable diseases as well as on the healthcare applications of epidemiological research, the policy impact of epidemiological findings, and on the exploration of different surveillance practices. We would like to collect great achievements in epidemiology and provide a holistic and global overview of population health, risk factors, successful prevention strategies, and control measures.

We invite researchers to further explore the influence of risk factors and their contribution to the identification of disease occurrence in populations worldwide and to submit their results. In particular, we wish to stimulate the examination of epidemiological data from different countries and/or regions with the goal of finding common patterns in disease occurrence. The evaluation of the prevention programs and strategies across different settings is also welcome. 

In this Special Issue, we would like to address the role of epidemiology in the new age—exploring new ways of using technology in the context of the public health surveillance, of improving healthcare practice, patient outcome, and beyond. In addition, research that explores a complex interplay of cultural, sociological, and economic factors that influence prevalence and incidence are particularly welcome.

We would also like to place additional focus on epidemiological research in high-risk, underserved, marginalized, and vulnerable populations, like persons with disabilities; migrants and refugees; elderly and frail individuals; ethnic, racial, and sexual minorities, etc. These systematically disadvantaged populations often face different challenges when accessing public health and healthcare services and, with respect to the general population, often experience disproportionally higher rates of disease occurrence, especially infectious diseases.

Effective surveillance should provide effective disease control, and strengthening public health surveillance should be a priority in the management of population health. Thus, we wish to encourage submissions that explore sustainability and the functioning of the public health surveillance, with particular focus on the tracking and monitoring of the emerging outbreaks, trends and patterns in risk factors, and agents and disease occurrence, as well as offering timely control solutions.  

Finally, this Special Issue provides a platform to disseminate current epidemiological research that can assist in the evidence-based decision making with the final aim to optimize public health efforts and to improve population’s health. Multidisciplinary work and work resulting from international collaborations are particularly welcome. We look forward to receiving your valuable scientific contributions.

Dr. Vladimir Vuković
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• epidemiology
• infectious diseases
• noncommunicable diseases
• public health
• surveillance
• risk factors
• disease etiology
• disease control
• prevention strategy
• policy impact