Year |
Issuer |
Reportable Disease focus |
Impact |
1701
|
State
|
Ship masters entering
|
Notify military garrison of
on board conditions
|
1732
|
State
|
Householder reporting of smallpox
and red flag notification[ii]
|
Mainland focus caused by
increased interstate trade
|
1742
|
State
|
Self reporting of smallpox
by strangers entering town[iii]
|
Response to
|
1764
|
State
|
Physicians must report when
patients are free of smallpox after they have been isolated during their
infectious stage.[iv]
|
Physicians must disclose
patient’s health to protect those not exposed to smallpox.
|
1799
|
State
|
Lodging houses to report
diseases of sailors in port cities[v]
|
|
1828
|
State
|
Physicians required to
report smallpox cases[vi]
|
Reporting to chief elected
officials.
|
1874
|
State
|
Those infected with a
reportable disease are required to pay for their own treatment, otherwise if
unable to pay, the cost is born by the town where the patient has legal
residence[vii]
|
Imposes personal liability
for those are infected, thereby discouraging reporting.
|
1878
|
Federal
|
Congress authorizes the
forerunner of Public Health Service to collect morbidity reports for use with
quarantine measures against pestilential diseases such as cholera, smallpox,
plague, and yellow fever.[viii]
|
Improved disease reporting
leads to improved interstate controls over communicable disease.
|
1883
|
State
|
Local Board of Health must
report to State Department of Public Health (DPH).[ix]
|
Smallpox was the initial
focus
|
1884
|
State
|
School Committees are
prohibited from allowing students with smallpox, diphtheria or scarlet fever
from attending school.[x]
|
Reports of smallpox,
diphtheria and scarlet fever in the schools require home quarantine.
|
1884
|
State
|
Householders and physicians
are required to report diseases dangerous to the public health to town selectmen[xi]
|
Formal communication
procedures emerge between creator and receiver of information
|
1885
|
State
|
Diseases dangerous to
public health must be reported
|
Focus on local Board
reporting to state DPH
|
1890
|
State
|
Reports of disease reported
to Boards of Health rather than Selectmen[xii]
|
Emergence of government
health bureaus to control information flow and quality
|
1891
|
State
|
Written reports of
communicable disease from physicians[xiii]
|
Documented proof of cases
|
1893
|
State
|
Emphasis on timely
reporting within 24 hours[xiv]
|
Physicians held responsible
|
1893
|
Federal
|
Federal government
establishes disease reporting from state and municipal sanitary authorities
throughout the
|
Nationwide network of
weekly disease reporting created through the auspices of the US Marine
Hospital Service (predecessor to the U.S. Public Health Service - USPHS)
|
1900
|
The Boston Board of Health
includes tuberculosis on the list of diseases to be reported to the Board of
Health[xvi]
|
Boston Board of Health had
relatively early recognition of the dangers posed by TB
|
|
1901
|
State
|
Towns are required to
establish hospitals for dangerous diseases[xvii]
|
Reporting of disease has
financial consequences to all Commonwealth towns.
|
1902
|
State
|
Towns can shift cases of
reportable disease to adjoining towns with the consent of the receiving town.[xviii]
|
Reduces financial impact of
creating pest houses in every town in
|
1905
|
State
|
Reporting of contagious eye
disease[xix]
|
Physicians held responsible
|
1906
|
State
|
All towns must appoint
school physicians and these physicians must report all cases of smallpox,
scarlet fever, measles, chickenpox, tuberculosis, diphtheria, influenza,
tonsillitis, whooping cough, mumps, scabies or trachoma.[xx]
|
Reporting of diseases in
the school increases disease reporting dramatically based on administrative
efficiencies of reporting cases from a “captive audience.”
|
1907
|
State
|
State DPH authorized to
determine what are dangerous diseases to public health. [xxi]
|
Focus is on regulatory authority
of experts. Law covered tuberculosis
for the first time.
|
1907
|
State
|
Mandatory reporting of
Tuberculosis cases by householders and physicians after TB is declared by the
State Board of Health to be dangerous.[xxii]
|
Authority to declare it
dangerous is vested in the state Board of Health.
|
1925
|
State
|
Required reporting of
Syphilis and Gonorrhea[xxiii]
|
Socially stigmatizing
diseases made public
|
1938
|
State
|
Reporting of disease
amongst school children[xxiv]
|
Focus on parental
responsibility
|
1948
|
State
|
State authority over
venereal disease expands from gonorrhea and syphilis to other venereal
diseases as it defines from time to time. Physicians may disclose venereal
disease to anyone who has received a promise of marriage without becoming
vulnerable for liable or slander.[xxv]
|
Concerns with liability of
physicians who disclose venereal disease information of their patients and
protection of victims of venereal disease from public humiliation and
discrimination.
|
1950
|
State
|
Disease reporting of
workers prior to accepting teaching jobs[xxvi]
|
Focus on protecting school
children
|
1950
|
Federal
|
Concept of surveillance as the monitoring of disease occurrence in populations
developed by Langmuir
|
Population level trends in
disease associated with work of the newly created CDC.
|
1952
|
State
|
Children with a disease
dangerous to public health must provide a certificate that danger of
conveying disease has passed.[xxvii]
|
Boards of Health must determine
“non-communicability” of disease if required.
|
1966
|
WHO
|
First publication of Communicable Disease
Surveillance
Reports by World Health
Organization[xxviii]
|
Global understanding of the
status of communicable diseases.
|
1983
|
State
|
Required TB reporting to
local Boards of Health[xxix]
|
Reemergence of TB raises epidemic
concerns
|
1988
|
State
|
First responder required to
report exposures to disease[xxx]
|
Danger of public health
compromised by those on the front lines
|
[viii] Stephen B. Thacker And Ruth L. Berkelman, Public Health Surveillance In The United
States, Epidemiological Reviews, Vol. 10, 1988, 164-190.
[xv] The Statutes at Large of the United States of America,
December 1891 to March 1893, Chapter 114, An Act granting additional quarantine
powers and imposing additional duties upon the Marine Hospital Service;
Approved February 14, 1893, pp. 449-452.
[xvi] Jacobs, Philip P. The Campaign Against Tuberculosis in
the United States , Charities
Publication Committee, New York
[xx] Acts and Resolves of the General Court of
Massachusetts, 1906, Chapter 502, An Act relative to the appointment of school
physicians, June 20, 1906, pp. 680-682.
[xxviii] S. Declich & A.O. Carter, Public health
surveillance: historical origins, methods and evaluation, Bulletin of the World
Health Organization, 1994, 72 (2): 285-304 (1994)
