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Health Events (health + event)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	58%
Mathematics and Statistics	33%

Kinds of Health Events

adverse health event

Selected Abstracts

Mortality and Adverse Health Events in Newly Admitted Nursing Home Residents with and without Dementia

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 11 2005
Jay Magaziner PhD
Objectives: To evaluate the association between dementia and mortality, adverse health events, and discharge disposition of newly admitted nursing home residents. It was hypothesized that residents with dementia would die at a higher rate and develop more adverse health events (e.g., infections, fevers, pressure ulcers, falls) than residents without dementia because of communication and self-care difficulties. Design: An expert clinician panel diagnosed an admission cohort from a stratified random sample of 59 Maryland nursing homes, between 1992 and 1995. The cohort was followed for up to 2 years or until discharge. Setting: Fifty-nine Maryland nursing homes. Participants: Two thousand one hundred fifty-three newly admitted residents aged 65 and older not having resided in a nursing home for 8 or more days in the previous year. Measurements: Mortality, infection, fever, pressure ulcers, fractures, and discharge home. Results: Residents with dementia had significantly lower overall rates of infection (relative risk (RR)=0.77, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.70,0.85) and mortality (RR=0.61, 95% CI=0.53,0.71) than those without dementia, whereas rates of fever, pressure ulcers, and fractures were similar for the two groups. These results persisted when rates were adjusted for demographic characteristics, comorbid conditions, and functional status. During the first 90 days of the nursing home stay, residents with dementia had significantly lower rates of mortality if not admitted for rehabilitative care under a Medicare qualifying stay (RR=0.25, 95% CI=0.14,0.45), were less often discharged home (RR=0.33, 95% CI=0.28,0.38), and tended to have lower fever rates (RR=0.78, 95% CI=0.63,0.96) than residents without dementia. Conclusion: Newly admitted nursing home residents with dementia have a profile of health events that is distinct from that of residents without dementia, indicating that the two groups have different long-term care needs. Results suggest that further investigation of whether residents with dementia can be well managed in alternative residential settings would be valuable. [source]

Use of Malaria Prevention Measures by North American and European Travelers to East Africa

JOURNAL OF TRAVEL MEDICINE, Issue 4 2001
Hans O. Lobel
Background: The use of preventive measures, including effective chemoprophylaxis, is essential for protection against malaria among travelers. However, data have shown that travelers and medical advisors are confused by the lack of uniform recommendations and numerous prophylactic regimens of varying effectiveness that are used. Methods: To assess the use and type of preventive measures against malaria, we conducted a cross-sectional study in 1997 among travelers departing from the Nairobi and Mombasa airports in Kenya with European destinations. Results: Seventy-five percent of the travelers studied were residents of Europe and 25% were residents of North America; all stayed less than 1 year, and visited malarious areas. Most travelers, 97.1%, were aware of the risk and 91.3% sought pretravel medical advice. Although 95.4% used chemoprophylaxis and/or antimosquito measures, only 61.7% used both regular chemoprophylaxis and two or more antimosquito measures. Compliance with chemoprophylaxis was lowest amongst those who used a drug with a daily, as opposed to, a weekly dosing schedule, stayed more than 1 month, attributed an adverse health event to the chemoprophylaxis, and were less than 40 years of age. Among US travelers, 94.6% of those taking chemoprophylaxis were taking an effective regimen, that is, mefloquine or doxycycline. Only 1.9% used a suboptimal drug regimen, such as chloroquine/proguanil. Among European travelers, 69% used mefloquine or doxycycline, and 25% used chloroquine/proguanil. Notably, 45.3% of travelers from the UK used chloroquine/proguanil. Adverse events were noted by 19.7% of mefloquine users and 16.4% of travelers taking chloroquine/proguanil. Neuropsychologic adverse events were reported by 7.8% of users of mefloquine and 1.9% of those taking chloroquine/proguanil. The adverse events, however, had a lesser impact on compliance than frequent dosing schedule. Conclusions: Health information should be targeted to travelers who are likely to use suboptimal chemoprophylaxis or may be noncompliant with prophylaxis. Uniform recommendations for effective chemoprophylaxis with simple dosing schedules are necessary to reduce rates of malaria among travelers to Africa. [source]

Relationship of work injury severity to family member hospitalization

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 5 2010
Abay G. Asfaw PhD
Abstract Background Working while under stress due to a family health event may result in injuries of greater severity. Work leave might mitigate such consequences. Data and Methods Workers' compensation data for 33,817 injured workers and inpatient medical data for 76,077 members of their families were extracted from the 2002,2005 Thomson Reuters Medstat MarketScan Health and Productivity Management (HPM) and Commercial Claims and Encounter (CCE) datasets. Using a probit model, the impact of family hospitalization on the probability that a subsequent injury would be severe (above average indemnity costs) was estimated, adjusting for age, sex, hourly versus salaried status, industry sector, state, and family size. Results Family hospitalization within 15 days before injury increased the likelihood that the injury would be severe (from 12.5% to 21.5%) and was associated with 40% higher indemnity costs and 50% higher medical costs. Hospitalizations over 30 days before injury had no impact. Conclusion The observed higher severity of work injuries following family hospitalizations suggests additional analyses may find higher injury rates as well, and that timely family leaves might help prevent severe workplace injuries. Am. J. Ind. Med. 53:506,513, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Setting up an early warning system for epidemic-prone diseases in Darfur: a participative approach

DISASTERS, Issue 4 2005
Augusto Pinto
Abstract In April,May 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) implemented, with local authorities, United Nations (UN) agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), an early warning system (EWS) in Darfur, West Sudan, for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The number of consultations and deaths per week for 12 health events is recorded for two age groups (less than five years and five years and above). Thresholds are used to detect potential outbreaks. Ten weeks after the introduction of the system, NGOs were covering 54 camps, and 924,281 people (IDPs and the host population). Of these 54 camps, 41 (76%) were reporting regularly under the EWS. Between 22 May and 30 July, 179,795 consultations were reported: 18.7% for acute respiratory infections; 15% for malaria; 8.4% for bloody diarrhoea; and 1% for severe acute malnutrition. The EWS is useful for detecting outbreaks and monitoring the number of consultations required to trigger actions, but not for estimating mortality. [source]

On case-crossover methods for environmental time series data

ENVIRONMETRICS, Issue 2 2007
Heather J. Whitaker
Abstract Case-crossover methods are widely used for analysing data on the association between health events and environmental exposures. In recent years, several approaches to choosing referent periods have been suggested, with much discussion of two types of bias: bias due to temporal trends, and overlap bias. In the present paper, we revisit the case-crossover method, focusing on its origin in the case-control paradigm, in order to throw new light on these biases. We emphasise the distinction between methods based on case-control logic (such as the symmetric bi-directional (SBI) method), for which overlap bias is a consequence of non-exchangeability of the exposure series, and methods based on cohort logic (such as the time-stratified (TS) method), for which overlap bias does not arise. We show by example that the TS method may suffer severe bias from residual seasonality. This method can be extended to control for seasonality. However, time series regression is more flexible than case-crossover methods for the analysis of data on shared environmental exposures. We conclude that time series regression ought to be adopted as the method of choice in such applications. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Nutritional status and health outcomes for older people with dementia living in institutions

JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING, Issue 5 2007
Meei-Fang Lou
Abstract Title.,Nutritional status and health outcomes for older people with dementia living in institutions Aim., This paper is a report of a study to determine changes over a 3-month period among older people with dementia living in long-term care settings, related to: (1) changes in body mass index, and (2) health outcomes and associated factors. Background., Nutritional deficiencies are common problems among older people, but frequently unrecognized, both in long-term care settings and in the community. Method., A cross-sectional design with repeated measures of body weights and medical record reviews was adopted. The study was conducted in 2003 in two long-term care facilities for older people with dementia in Taiwan. Fifty-five residents participated in the study. Results., Eighteen percent of the residents were under-nourished (body mass index <18·5). There was a trend toward decreasing body mass index over the 3-month study period. Residents with low body mass index tended to need assistance at mealtimes. Nineteen residents, many receiving naso-gastric tube-feeding, experienced adverse health events during the study period. Dependency in eating was the major factor differentiating residents with normal or low body mass index values, and also in distinguishing those who experienced adverse health outcomes. Conclusion., Assessment of eating ability, mode of feeding and measurement of body weight can be used by nurses in long-term care settings for early identification of the nutritional status of older people with dementia. [source]

Mortality and Adverse Health Events in Newly Admitted Nursing Home Residents with and without Dementia

Alcohol Biomarkers in Patients Admitted for Trauma

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 10 2009
Michael Fleming
Background:, To assess the value of blood alcohol levels (BAL) and carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) in trauma patients. Methods:, A prospective study was conducted among 213 patients admitted to a university hospital after trauma. Outcomes of interest included the development of alcohol withdrawal, infections, respiratory problems, cardiac events, thromboembolism, and length of stay. Results:, The majority (78%) of the trauma patients in the study was males over the age of 18. Seventy-five percent were reported drinking an alcohol-containing beverage in the previous 30 days, 34% had ,5 heavy drinking days, and 18.7% met current DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse and 13.1% current criteria for dependence. Twenty-two percent (n = 48) had a positive BAL and 14% (n = 30) a CDT level >2.5%. Twelve percent (n = 27) of the sample developed alcohol withdrawal and 55% (n = 113) had one or more adverse health events during their hospitalization. The development of alcohol withdrawal was associated with an admission CDT >2.5% (,2: 4.77, p < 0.029) and/or a positive BAL (,2: 54.01, p < 0.001). The alcohol biomarkers identified 13 male and 3 female high-risk patients (7.4% of the total sample) who denied excessive alcohol use, and who would have been missed if these markers were not used. A composite morbidity trauma score composed of 25 adverse health events was associated with a positive BAL (p < 0.022). Conclusion:, The study provides additional empirical evidence that supports the use of BAL in all patients admitted for trauma. The usefulness of CDT in trauma patients remains unclear and will require larger samples in more critically ill patients. [source]

Spatial Cluster Detection for Weighted Outcomes Using Cumulative Geographic Residuals

BIOMETRICS, Issue 3 2010
Andrea J. Cook
Summary Spatial cluster detection is an important methodology for identifying regions with excessive numbers of adverse health events without making strong model assumptions on the underlying spatial dependence structure. Previous work has focused on point or individual-level outcome data and few advances have been made when the outcome data are reported at an aggregated level, for example, at the county- or census-tract level. This article proposes a new class of spatial cluster detection methods for point or aggregate data, comprising of continuous, binary, and count data. Compared with the existing spatial cluster detection methods it has the following advantages. First, it readily incorporates region-specific weights, for example, based on a region's population or a region's outcome variance, which is the key for aggregate data. Second, the established general framework allows for area-level and individual-level covariate adjustment. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the method. The proposed method is then applied to assess spatial clustering of high Body Mass Index in a health maintenance organization population in the Seattle, Washington, USA area. [source]

A Class of Multiplicity Adjusted Tests for Spatial Clustering Based on Case,Control Point Data

BIOMETRICS, Issue 1 2007
Toshiro Tango
Summary A class of tests with quadratic forms for detecting spatial clustering of health events based on case,control point data is proposed. It includes Cuzick and Edwards's test statistic (1990, Journal of theRoyal Statistical Society, Series B52, 73,104). Although they used the property of asymptotic normality of the test statistic, we show that such an approximation is generally poor for moderately large sample sizes. Instead, we suggest a central chi-square distribution as a better approximation to the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic. Furthermore, not only to estimate the optimal value of the unknown parameter on the scale of cluster but also to adjust for multiple testing due to repeating the procedure by changing the parameter value, we propose the minimum of the profile p-value of the test statistic for the parameter as an integrated test statistic. We also provide a statistic to estimate the areas or cases which make large contributions to significant clustering. The proposed methods are illustrated with a data set concerning the locations of cases of childhood leukemia and lymphoma and another on early medieval grave site locations consisting of affected and nonaffected grave sites. [source]

A Tree-Based Scan Statistic for Database Disease Surveillance

BIOMETRICS, Issue 2 2003
Martin Kulldorff
Summary Many databases exist with which it is possible to study the relationship between health events and various potential risk factors. Among these databases, some have variables that naturally form a hierarchical tree structure, such as pharmaceutical drugs and occupations. It is of great interest to use such databases for surveillance purposes in order to detect unsuspected relationships to disease risk. We propose a tree-based scan statistic, by which the surveillance can be conducted with a minimum of prior assumptions about the group of occupations/drugs that increase risk, and which adjusts for the multiple testing inherent in the many potential combinations. The method is illustrated using data from the National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death Database, looking at the relationship between occupation and death from silicosis. [source]