Triple surveillance: a proposal for an integrated strategy to support and accelerate birth defect prevention.

ABSTRACT: Preventing neural tube defects (NTDs) easily qualifies as a high-value opportunity to improve childhood survival and health: the unmet need is significant (major preventable burden), the intervention is transformative (providing sufficient folic acid), and delivery strategies (e.g., fortification) are effective in low-resource countries. Yet, NTD prevention is lagging. Can public health surveillance help fix this problem? Critics contend that surveillance is largely unnecessary, that limited resources are best spent on interventions, and that surveillance is unrealistic in developing countries. The counterargument is twofold: (1) in the absence of surveillance, interventions will provide fewer benefits and cost more and (2) effective surveillance is likely possible nearly everywhere, with

SUBMITTER: Botto LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5873412 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature