Working Life: We cover different aspects of infectious disease surveillance

Patricia Garvey, principal epidemiologist, Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HSE

Patricia Garvey, epidemiologist with the HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre Photograph Moya Nolan

7am

My day starts with a walk around the garden, picking whatever fruit is in season for breakfast. This week it’s raspberries and figs.

8.30am

Work gets underway — my days are a mix of office-based and remote working. I scan emails to check for urgent requests that might need an immediate response.

Next, I have a Teams meeting with the food and waterborne disease team. We will review incoming notification data from the national computerised infectious disease reporting system through the National Notifiable Disease Hub.

We search for anomalies, clustering of cases, or changes in epidemiological trends in diseases that might suggest an important communicable disease risk to the population that requires further investigation. We also review alerts from sister agencies, channelled to us through confidential networks by the European Centre for Disease Control. We check for alerts from Irish reference laboratory colleagues who undertake detailed genetic fingerprinting of strains from human cases of food and waterborne disease, checking for possible outbreaks.

11am

I prepare for an interdisciplinary incident management team meeting with national and regional public health colleagues, colleagues from the reference laboratory, and national food, environmental health, and agricultural agencies, to discuss the investigation of a suspected foodborne outbreak.

2pm

After lunch, I meet with the four principal epidemiologists in the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC). We all cover different aspects of infectious disease surveillance. It’s a chance to discuss current surveillance issues and review relevant management or administrative concerns.

3.30pm

I work with members of the HPSC data visualisation team on our latest project, which presents data using visual elements such as charts, graphs, and maps. We’ve made great strides in how HPSC presents communicable disease surveillance data, and I’m excited about upcoming new projects. It’s an innovative time to work in visualising disease surveillance data in Ireland.

I finish my day with phone calls, emails, and other actions on my to-do list.

6.30pm

After work, I go for a short run or walk with my husband before relaxing over dinner and TV.

• The covid pandemic highlighted the importance of robust, accessible health statistics and their impact on real-life health outcomes. 
• The HPSC has devised a single hub that reports weekly on 79 notifiable diseases. It is publicly available at notifiabledisease.hpsc.ie