RT Book, Section
A1 Greenberg, Raymond S.
A1 Daniels, Stephen R.
A1 Flanders, W. Dana
A1 Eley, John William
A1 Boring, John R.
SR Print(0)
ID 545313
T1 Chapter 4. Medical Surveillance
T2 Medical Epidemiology, 4e
YR 2005
FD 2005
PB The McGraw-Hill Companies
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071416375
LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=545313
RD 2024/04/19
AB Medical  surveillance  is  undertaken  to  identify  changes  in  the  distributions  of  diseases  in  order  to  prevent  or  control  these  conditions  within  a  population.  A  comparison  of  incidence  rates  across  populations  can  help  to  determine  characteristics  of  populations  at  higher  (and  lower)  risk.  Surveillance  of  deaths  is  convenient  because  the  information  is  virtually  complete,  standardized  and  inexpensive  to  obtain.  Nevertheless,  data  collected  from  death  certificates  may  be  limited  by  omitted  or  inaccurate  information.  Age  adjustment  is  used  to  remove  the  influence  of  any  age  differences  when  comparing  the  disease  frequencies  of  two  populations.  Premature  death  measures  the  years  of  potential  life  lost  to  a  particular  disease,  and  therefore  weighs  most  heavily  deaths  that  occur  at  young  ages.