A health surveillance function is common to both the UK and Canada. It is broadly specified in the UK as 'health surveillance, monitoring and analysis', while in Canada the function of 'population health assessment' is specified separately, in addition to 'health surveillance'. 57 In Australia, the first of the nine NPHP public health core functions is 'assess, analyse and communicate population health needs...' (and is proposed as 'assess health of populations' in version one of a public health classification -see Table 3 ), although expenditure on this public health activity is not currently reported in an identifiable manner.