Dataset Information

Fatal infectious disease surveillance in a medical examiner database.

ABSTRACT: Increasing infectious disease deaths, the emergence of new infections, and bioterrorism have made surveillance for infectious diseases a public health concern. Medical examiners and coroners certify approximately 20% of all deaths that occur within the United States and can be a key source of information regarding infectious disease deaths. We hypothesized that a computer-assisted search tool (algorithm) could detect infectious disease deaths from a medical examiner database, thereby reducing the time and resources required to perform such surveillance manually. We developed two algorithms, applied them to a medical examiner database, and verified the cases identified against the opinion of a panel of experts. The algorithms detected deaths with infectious components with sensitivities from 67% to 94%, and predictive value positives ranging from 8% to 49%. Algorithms can be useful for surveillance in medical examiner offices that have limited resources or for conducting surveillance across medical examiner jurisdictions.

SUBMITTER: Wolfe MI

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3322763 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Fatal infectious disease surveillance in a medical examiner database.

Wolfe Mitchell I MI Nolte Kurt B KB Yoon Steven S SS

Emerging infectious diseases 20040101 1

Increasing infectious disease deaths, the emergence of new infections, and bioterrorism have made surveillance for infectious diseases a public health concern. Medical examiners and coroners certify approximately 20% of all deaths that occur within the United States and can be a key source of information regarding infectious disease deaths. We hypothesized that a computer-assisted search tool (algorithm) could detect infectious disease deaths from a medical examiner database, thereby reducing th ...[more]

PMID: 15078596

Similar Datasets

Project description:ContextPublic Health Ontario (PHO) publishes various infectious disease surveillance reports, but none have yet been formally evaluated.ObjectivePHO evaluated its monthly and annual infectious disease surveillance reports to assess public health stakeholders' current perception of the products and to develop recommendations for improving future products.DesignAn evaluation consisting of an online survey and a review of public Web sites of other jurisdictions with similar annual reports.SettingFor the online survey, stakeholder organizations targeted were the 36 local public health units and the Health health ministry in Ontario, Canada.ParticipantsSurvey participants included epidemiologists, managers, directors, and other public health practitioners from participating organizations.Main outcome measuresOnline survey respondents' awareness and access to the reports, their rated usefulness of reports and subsections, and suggestions for improving usefulness; timeliness of select annual reports from other jurisdictions based on the period from data described to report publication.ResultsAmong 57 survey respondents, between 74% and 97% rated each report as useful; the most common use was for situational awareness. Respondents ranked timeliness as the most important attribute of surveillance reports, followed by data completeness. Among 6 annual reports reviewed, the median time to publication was 11.5 months compared with 23.2 months for PHO.ConclusionRecommendations based on this evaluation have already been applied to the monthly report (eg, focusing on the most useful sections) and have become key considerations when developing future annual reports and other surveillance reporting tools (eg, need to provide more timely reports). Other public health organizations may also use this evaluation to inform aspects of their surveillance report development and evaluation. The evaluation results have provided PHO with direction on how to improve its provincial infectious disease surveillance reporting moving forward, and formed a basis for future work in surveillance product development and evaluation.

Dataset Information

Fatal infectious disease surveillance in a medical examiner database.

Publications

Fatal infectious disease surveillance in a medical examiner database.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets