MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report
-
MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. · Nov 2004
State-specific prevalence of current cigarette smoking among adults--United States, 2003.
Cigarette smoking causes approximately 440,000 deaths annually in the United States. To assess the prevalence of current cigarette smoking among adults, CDC analyzed data from the 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey. ⋯ Virgin Islands (USVI) (range: 10.0%-34.0%). To further reduce the prevalence of smoking, states/areas should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.
-
The Darfur region of Sudan, composed of three states with a population of approximately six million, has experienced civil conflict during the previous year, resulting in the internal displacement of approximately one million residents and an exodus of an estimated 170,000 persons to neighboring Chad. The conflict has left a vulnerable population with limited access to food, health care, and other basic necessities. ⋯ Ongoing measles transmission in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and neighboring communities in Darfur led to a regionwide measles vaccination campaign targeting all children aged 9 months-15 years, resulting in a reduction in reported measles cases. Once security is improved, ongoing efforts to increase measles vaccine coverage will be required to eliminate persistent susceptibility to measles in the Darfur population.
-
MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. · Sep 2004
Comparative StudyComparison of two major emergency department-based free-text chief-complaint coding systems.
Emergency departments (EDs) using free-text chief-complaint data for syndromic surveillance face a unique challenge because a complaint might be described and coded in multiple ways. ⋯ Although this analysis revealed optimal overall agreement between the two systems evaluated, substantial differences in classification schemes existed, highlighting the need for a consensus regarding chief-complaint classification.
-
MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. · Sep 2004
Should we be worried? Investigation of signals generated by an electronic syndromic surveillance system--Westchester County, New York.
In January 2003, the Westchester County Department of Health (WCDH) began conducting electronic syndromic surveillance of hospital emergency department (ED) chief complaints. Although methods for data collection and analysis used in syndromic surveillance have been described previously, minimal information exists regarding the responses to and investigations of signals detected by such systems. This paper describes WCDH's experience in responding to syndromic surveillance signals during the first 9 months after the system was implemented. ⋯ Standardized sets of text terms used to identify and classify hospital ED chief complaints into syndrome categories might require modification on the basis of hospital idiosyncrasies in recording chief complaints. Signal investigations could be reasonably conducted by using local health department resources. Although no communicable disease events were identified, the system provided baseline and timely objective data for hospital visits and improved communication among county health department and hospital ED staff.
-
MMWR Morb. Mortal. Wkly. Rep. · Sep 2004
Taming variability in free text: application to health surveillance.
Use of free text in syndromic surveillance requires managing the substantial word variation that results from use of synonyms, abbreviations, acronyms, truncations, concatenations, misspellings, and typographic errors. Failure to detect these variations results in missed cases, and traditional methods for capturing these variations require ongoing, labor-intensive maintenance. ⋯ Incomplete vocabulary and word errors can have a substantial impact on the retrieval performance of free-text syndromic surveillance systems. The text normalization methods described in this paper can reduce the effects of these problems.