Every time we do some analysis or try to answer questions like the ones posed to us today, we find that there are gaps in some of the striations, some of the geographical spread, and in some of the timeliness. In an ideal world, we would be able to collect uniform data that would be comparable across the country.
Surveillance and the adequacy of data are a key support in the ability of the public health network, and the expert group under it, to prepare analyses, compare Canada with other countries, design workable interventions, and gather evidence to evaluate our work. Surveillance is a challenge throughout the organization, and we work every day to make it better.