The Reporting of Communicable Diseases

Marier, Robert L.

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a112424

Cited by 115 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…Much of the surveillance for infectious diseases has been passive surveillance, and therefore often incomplete. 24,25 More recent surveillance efforts, particularly for TB and HIV or AIDS, have been active, and have demonstrated improved reporting rates. [26][27][28] While the completeness of reporting for TB in adults has been explored, 22,[29][30][31][32][33] this study is the first assessment of completeness of reporting performed exclusively for a pediatric population.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Completeness of pediatric TB reporting in New York City

Gabriel¹,

Saiman²,

Kaye³

et al. 2003

Public Health Reports

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SYNOPSISObjectives. Accurate surveillance of tuberculosis (TB) in children is critical because such cases represent recent transmission, but surveillance is difficult as only 10% to 50% of cases are culture-confirmed. Hospital-based sources were used to develop alternative surveillance to assess completeness of reporting for pediatric TB in northern Manhattan and Harlem from 1993 through 1995.Methods. Alternative surveillance sources included ICD-9-CM hospital discharge codes for active TB and gastric aspirate reports. Cases identified by alternative surveillance were compared with cases previously reported to the New York City Department of Health (NYC DOH).Results. Alternative surveillance detected 25 cases of possible pediatric TB, of which four (16%) had never been reported to the NYC DOH and three (12%) had been reported as suspect cases, but had not fulfilled the criteria for a reportable case of pediatric TB. Of these seven newly counted cases, three were detected by ICD-9-CM codes, three by a gastric aspirate log book, and one by both. In contrast, 13 other cases had been reported to the NYC DOH, but were undetected by our alternative surveillance; eight of these could be verified with available medical records. Thus, the demographic and clinical characteristics of the 25 detected and the eight undetected cases with available medical records were evaluated in this study.Conclusions. Alternative surveillance proved effective, was complementary to the NYC DOH surveillance efforts, and increased the number of pediatric TB cases identified during the study period by 21%.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Completeness of pediatric TB reporting in New York City

Gabriel¹,

Saiman²,

Kaye³

et al. 2003

Public Health Reports

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“…[19][20][21][22] Under-ascertainment is a problem common to all passive surveillance systems, including those that monitor the occurrence of life-threatening infectious diseases. 23,24 The perceived importance of an illness and the clinical outcome associated with a particular episode (e.g., recovery versus death) may influence the rate of reporting; however, estimates for completeness of reporting of deaths attributable to other nationally notifiable diseases reveal similarly low percentages, including 33% for pertussis and 40% for tetanus. 10,11 Application of capture-recapture methods require several assumptions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the magnitude of fatal Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the United States: comparison of two national data sources.

Paddock¹,

Holman²,

Krebs³

et al. 2002

The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

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Abstract. To assess the magnitude of fatal Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) and to evaluate the completeness of national surveillance for this occurrence from 1983 through 1998, two independent sources of RMSF mortality data were analyzed using a capture-recapture method. Two hundred twenty-four deaths reported through RMSF case report forms (CRFs) were compared with 304 RMSF-associated deaths recorded in the United States multiple cause-of-death (MCD) database. Demographic, geographic, seasonal, and temporal characteristics of decedents were remarkably similar between sources. Median annual deaths ascertained from CRF and MCD data sources were 11 (range ‫ס‬ 5−35) and 18 (range ‫ס‬ 5−39), respectively. Decedents were matched between sources by year, state, age, sex, race, and month-of-death; 111 deaths were matched to both sources, and percent concordance between CRFs and MCD data during the 16-year study period was 27% (range ‫ס‬ 7−45%). An estimated 612 RMSF-associated deaths occurred during the study period (median ‫ס‬ 37 per year, range ‫ס‬ 16−64), suggesting that approximately 400 fatal cases of RMSF went unreported to national surveillance during the period 1983−1998, for an estimated completeness of CRF reporting of 36%.

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“…It is widely recognized that only a fraction of communicable disease cases are reported by the notifiable diseases reporting system [4]. The new surveillance system revealed that, for example, in 1984 only 33% of cases of gonorrhoea notified through the sentinel laboratories [5] and 31 % of cases of malaria [6] were reported through the normal channels.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%