PUBLIC HEALTH CONCEPTUAL DATA MODEL
PREMIERE EDITION PA GE 11 OF 91 JULY 2000
model to be more readily digested. There are four subject areas in the PHCDM:
Health-related Activities, Locations, Materials, and Parties.
The Health-related Activities subject area contains information about services,
conditions, and actions of interest to public health. A health-related activity might
be an observation, an intervention, a referral, or a notification. Typical examples of
health-related activities include observation of patient signs and symptoms,
clinical diagnoses, surgical operations, laboratory tests and results, as well as
public health notifications, case or contact investigations, population-oriented
health education campaigns, food item recalls. Cases, case reports (notifications),
and outbreaks are classes or health-related activities of particular importance to
public health surveillance.
The Locations subject area contains information about addresses associated with
Parties, Health-related Activities, or Materials. Location information may be a
postal location, a telecommunication location, or a physical location. Typical
examples of locations include street addresses, post office boxes, telephone
numbers, e-mail or web-site addresses, geographic coordinates, and spatial
references such as three miles east of town on interstate 95.
The Materials subject area contains information about substances, equipment,
products such as food and medication, physical entities, and other tangible items
of interest to public health that are associated with health-related activities or
Parties. Typical examples of materials include food items, pesticides, blood
samples, specimens, medications, durable medical equipment, prosthetic devices,
and medical supplies. Physical entities of interest to public health may include
such items as a lake, pool, ship, or airplane that are potential sources of exposure
to health hazards.
The Parties subject area contains information about the participants of health-
related activities. A party may be an individual person or non-person living
organism, or a formal or informal organization. Typical examples of parties
include patients, physicians, public health nurses, epidemiologists, hospitals, and
laboratories, as well as organizations such as the Association of State and
Territorial Health Officials, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
Groups of parties with common characteristics, such as smokers or children under
5 years of age, are also included.
Classes and Relationships
There are 29 classes in the PHCDM. A Class is anything about which information
can be collected. Classes can be persons, places, things, concepts, or events.
There are four core classes in the PHCDM. The four core classes correspond with
the four subject areas. The four core classes are Health-related Activity, Location,
Material, and Party. Classes are depicted in the data model diagram by a
rectangular box with a line dividing the box into two vertical sections. The name