Monitoring the Nation's Health: My Role in UKHSA's FluSurvey

By Becki Green, PhD

As a Principal Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), I work on one of our core tools for tracking respiratory viruses across the country: FluSurvey. Born from the 2009 swine flu pandemic, this web-based symptoms survey has become fundamental to our surveillance of respiratory viral diseases, including flu and COVID-19.?

What makes FluSurvey particularly valuable is its ability to capture data from people who might never visit a GP or take a test. Each week, volunteers from across the country report whether they're experiencing any respiratory symptoms, helping us spot trends early and understand the burden of these viruses in our communities. This highlights trends that we wouldn’t see through healthcare settings. If you’re interested in taking part,?you can sign up for FluSurvey today.?

My days are fast-paced and varied, which I find exciting. I also enjoy working with a wide variety of teams to improve public health – from technology experts to communications teams and international surveillance groups.

During the winter months, I spend the first half of each week overseeing the prompt analysis and reporting of weekly surveillance data from several of the systems that feed into the National Flu and COVID-19 Surveillance Reports. FluSurvey is one of the surveillance systems used for these reports. On other days, I am busy working on improving these systems, responding to urgent public health questions and other outputs or analyses, as well as preparing for the next week.

My path to this role wasn't conventional. My background is in epidemiology and data analytics, and my journey has taken me through clinical research, publishing and academia, including a PhD in dementia research and a pivotal scholarship at the Alan Turing Institute working on COVID-19 research during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, alongside my UKHSA role, I hold an honorary appointment at University College London, where I co-supervise a PhD student. These experiences are tied together by my interest in public health and have provided a great platform for my work at UKHSA.

I'm particularly passionate about encouraging public participation in FluSurvey. It takes a few minutes each week to complete, and every response helps us better protect our communities. Simply register, complete a short background survey, and you can start voluntarily contributing to this vital public health initiative.

The broader our participant base, the more accurately we can monitor these viruses and keep communities safe. Whether you're feeling under the weather or fighting fit, your weekly updates are invaluable to our surveillance efforts.

英国伦敦大学学院 The Alan Turing Institute Nurin Abdul Aziz