Inaccurate ascertainment of morbidity and mortality due to influenza in administrative databases: a population-based record linkage study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Historically, counting influenza recorded in administrative health outcome databases has been considered insufficient to estimate influenza attributable morbidity and mortality in populations. We used database record linkage to evaluate whether modern databases have similar limitations.

Methods

Person-level records were linked across databases of laboratory notified influenza, emergency department (ED) presentations, hospital admissions and death registrations, from the population (∼6.9 million) of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 2005 to 2008.

Results

There were 2568 virologically diagnosed influenza infections notified. Among those, 25% of 40 who died, 49% of 1451 with a hospital admission and 7% of 1742 with an ED presentation had influenza recorded on

SUBMITTER: Muscatello DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4038604 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature