Architectural Pattern for Health Forecasting, Surveillance and Early Warning Systems

Abstract

The French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (InVS, French Public Health Agency) described its complex activities of monitoring, surveillance and warning into official reports published in 2005, 2006 and 2011. Taking these documents as a starting point, we employed Object-Oriented Analysis (OOA) and Universal Modeling Language (UML) to design the architecture of a system able to suitably perform these activities. The conceptual framework of our modeling work implies studying (1) “risk exposure situation” to environmental health threats of human, animal or vegetal populations and (2) responsibilities of the system in charge of monitoring, reporting and warning in case of unacceptable risks. Three examples of environmental health threats illustrate the model: bluetongue (an insect-borne disease of animal populations presenting serious economic impact), human intoxication by chlordecone (a persistent organochlorine pesticide used until early 1990s in French West Indies for banana weevil borer control) and human intoxication by phycotoxins (natural metabolites produced by marine microalgae), due to ingestion of contaminated seafood.