PHF Science's public health professionals are at the forefront of protecting Aotearoa through detecting, reducing and preventing the spread of disease, researching infectious diseases, and supporting a health system informed by good data, intelligence and systems.

As the preferred scientific provider for the Ministry of Health, PHF Science provides scientific support to prevent, detect and investigate infectious disease outbreaks, biological threats and emerging threats to public and environmental health. 

Our national surveillance programmes collect data on more than 50 diseases in Aotearoa, providing intelligence on outbreaks, descriptions of disease spread and explanations for disease patterns and trends.

We operate national public health laboratories providing specialist testing for a wide range of pathogens, including strain identification and epidemiological typing to support public health investigations. Our teams provide specialist expertise and reference testing infrastructure, ensuring New Zealand is prepared for emerging health threats.

We work with national and international partners to support critical research programmes in areas including WellKiwis, developing more effective influenza vaccines, and co-leading Te Niwha, New Zealand’s infectious diseases research platform.

Together, our teams contribute to a New Zealand public health system underpinned by excellent science, quality data and powerful tools. 

Public health surveillance is the ongoing, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data on specific health events for use in the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health programmes. 

PHF Science operates a number of public health surveillance systems on behalf of the Ministry of Health. These systems provide critical information about more than 50 priority infectious diseases that require public health action. These include diseases which are legally notifiable as well as other important diseases which are not (e.g. acute respiratory infections). We analyse and interpret the data to provide intelligence including, identification of outbreaks, descriptions of disease spread and explanations for disease patterns and trends.

Existing surveillance programmes are routinely evaluated and new programmes are investigated to ensure we remain at the forefront of public health best practice.

Why do we undertake surveillance?

• Estimate magnitude of the problem
• Determine geographic distribution of illness
• Understand impacts on different populations
• Portray the natural history of a disease
• Detect epidemics / define a problem
• Generate hypotheses, stimulate research
• Evaluate control measures
• Monitor changes in infectious agents
• Detect changes in health practices
• Facilitate planning for health services and prevention/control measures

What surveillance is PHF Science currently responsible for?

• Notifiable disease surveillance
• Outbreak surveillance
• Sexually transmitted infections
• Influenza viruses
• Respiratory, enteric and herpes viruses

You can use the information in our intelligence hub to find out more about our surveillance systems, check dashboards for data at-a-glance, and access more detailed intelligence summaries and reports: