Epidemiol Prev
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there has been a long-standing, consistent use worldwide of Healthcare Administrative Databases (HADs) for epidemiological purposes, especially to identify acute and chronic health conditions. These databases are able to reflect health-related conditions at a population level through disease-specific case-identification algorithms that combine information coded in multiple HADs. In Italy, in the past 10 years, HAD-based case-identification algorithms have experienced a constant increase, with a significant extension of the spectrum of identifiable diseases. Besides estimating incidence and/or prevalence of diseases, these algorithms have been used to enroll cohorts, monitor quality of care, assess the effect of environmental exposure, and identify health outcomes in analytic studies. Despite the rapid increase in the use of case-identification algorithms, information on their accuracy and misclassification rate is currently unavailable for most conditions. ⋯ this protocol defines a standardized approach to extensively examine and compare all experiences of case identification algorithms in Italy, on the 18 abovementioned diseases. The methodology proposed may be applied to other systematic reviews concerning diseases not included in this project, as well as other settings, including international ones. Considering the increasing availability of healthcare data, developing standard criteria to describe and update characteristics of published algorithms would be of great use to enhance awareness in the choice of algorithms and provide a greater comparability of results.