Monitoring of drug utilization in public health surveillance activities: a conceptual framework.

The surveillance of individual and aggregate patterns of prescribed medication can potentially provide some very useful information to those involved in public health. At present however, this activity has attracted relatively little attention in Canada. This article will introduce a conceptual framework with which to examine the possibilities of prescription drug monitoring as a tool for public health surveillance. The sources of data available to undertake this activity as well as their limitations, will be presented along with some recent concrete applications.