Oportunidades de colaboración de los Servicios de Emergencias 112 en la vigilancia de la salud pública

the andalusian regional ministry of health is implementing an alert integrated system (sia) in order to improve the health protection of the population by means of the appropriate response to the sanitary alerts. ？emergencias 112 andalucía？ is a service aimed both to catastrophic situations and to the other ones needing intervention and multisectorial coordination. theses functions make possible their collaboration with the sia, furnishing it with information about a series of environmental incidents. a study has been carried out in order to characterize the information received and to evaluate it systematic inclusion in the sia, which include alerts from january to august 2003. the number of incidents communicated to 112 were 656, rank betwen months from 45 to 117. it is appropriate to underline the frequency of incidences related to natural hazards (50.15%) and environmental pollution (26.07%). the 67.55% of incidences happened betwen 15.00 p.m. and 8.00 a.m. hours of the following day. by provinces, sevilla reported 24.5%, and the higher rate belongs to huelva with 4.74 incidences/100 000 inhabitants. incidents related to halth care, environmental problems, risks to alimentary and occupational health, and epidemiological alerts are of great interest to the sia; that is why it is necessary to consider the integration of the information systems of the emergency centres in the public health surveillance.