Our Mission

To strengthen Australia’s public health response to respiratory infections by delivering high-quality, timely, general practice sentinel surveillance data to support early detection, inform policy and public health interventions, and guide clinical practice.

Our History

The Australian Sentinel Practices Research Network (ASPREN) was established in 1991 by Dr Ian Steven, then Head of the RACGP Research Institute. At the time, Australia was one of the few high-income countries without a national general practice–based sentinel surveillance system. ASPREN was created to fill this gap—bringing together general practitioners across the country to monitor infectious diseases in the community.

In its early years, ASPREN relied on a simple but innovative reporting system. Participating GPs submitted weekly data via fax, using standardised forms which were read using optical scanning (Opscan) technology. These forms captured information on patients presenting with over 20 conditions, including influenza-like illness (ILI), laying the foundation for a national, real-time picture of illness in the community.

In 2006, ASPREN received its first Australian Government funding, enabling a major step forward with the development of a web-based reporting system. This modernisation improved the timeliness and quality of data collection and expanded ASPREN’s surveillance capacity.

Following the 2009 influenza pandemic, ASPREN expanded to include virological surveillance, supported by funding from the Australian Government’s Department of Health. This marked a significant evolution—from tracking symptoms alone to confirming infections through laboratory testing. The program was established in collaboration with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, enabling influenza-positive samples to be further characterised and contribute to global influenza monitoring.

In 2011, ASPREN launched FluSync, a data extraction tool that enabled automated, de-identified data collection directly from general practice software. This innovation reduced reporting burden for clinicians and enhanced the scale and accuracy of surveillance.

By 2012, ASPREN had become part of the Global Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Collaboration (GIVE), contributing Australian community data to estimates of influenza vaccine effectiveness twice each year.

ASPREN continued to evolve in response to emerging public health challenges. In 2020, the network rapidly evolved to include COVID-19 surveillance, including vaccine effectiveness estimates. In 2024, ASPREN incorporated respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) surveillance and vaccine effectiveness monitoring, reflecting the growing importance of RSV in public health.

In 2025, ASPREN became part of the Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC), further highlighting its role as a key contributor to national respiratory disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness.

Today, ASPREN remains at the forefront of community-based infectious disease surveillance in Australia, providing timely, high-quality data to inform public health action, clinical practice, and research both nationally and globally.