Year in review: health protection in NSW, 2012

Health protection involves the prevention and control of threats to health from communicable diseases and the environment.In New South Wales (NSW) in 2012 these functions were carried out by a range of groups, among them Health Protection NSW's Communicable Diseases and Environmental Health Branches, the NSW Ministry of Health's Population and Public Health Division, Public Health Units, clinicians, Local Health District services, local government, other government agencies, and communities.In this report we highlight the major health outcomes and achievements related to Health Protection NSW's activities in 2012, including some examples of health protection projects done in the field (Boxes 1-6).The health outcomes described in this report are measured mainly through routine surveillance data that are derived from notifications of selected diseases provided by doctors, hospitals and laboratories to Public Health Units under the NSW Public Health Act 2010.Tables 123456show disease-specific data on notifiable conditions reported by: year of onset of illness; month of onset of illness; Local Health District; and age group and sex.Note that the degree to which notification data reflect the true incidence of disease varies and is subject to a range of caveats. 1 Surveillance Vaccine-preventable diseasesIn 2012 there were: • no haemophilus influenzae type b notifications in children aged less than 5 years for the first time since 1993 • 5824 pertussis notifications (including one death in a 7-week old infant), a marked decrease from the record numbers in 2011 (.13 000)