OBJECTIVE Applying statistical process control (SPC) charts in perinatal mortality surveillance (as an epidemiological indicator). METHOD The control charts were prepared using 51,840 births; 286 cases were produced from these births. All information came from SUSALUD between January 2004 and December 2007. Two control charts are presented; the first one's central line was considered to be th...

The synthesis of existing Persistent Organic Pollutants pollution monitoring databases with epidemiological data is considered for identifying some impacts of Persistent Organic Pollutants on human health. This task requires new rich data, services, and model discovery capabilities from a multitude of monitoring networks and web resources. The FP7 project TaToo (Tagging Tool based on a Semantic...

Syndromic surveillance is a novel automated approach to monitoring influenza activity, but there is no consensus regarding the most informative data sources for use within such a system. By comparing physician billing data from Quebec, Canada and hospital admission records, we assessed the timeliness of medical visits for influenza-like illnesses (ILI) to two types of outpatient healthcare sett...

BACKGROUND Salmonellosis is of great economic concern in all phases of the poultry industry, from production to marketing, leading to severe economic losses. Monitoring the source of the bacterial contamination has fundamental importance in the spreading of salmonellosis. RESULTS We applied a ligation-mediated PCR method, PCR MP (PCR melting profile), to type S. enterica ssp. enterica ser. En...

Interval censoring arises frequently in clinical, epidemiological, financial and sociological studies, where the event or failure of interest is known only to occur within an interval induced by periodic monitoring. We formulate the effects of potentially time-dependent covariates on the interval-censored failure time through a broad class of semiparametric transformation models that encompasse...

There are currently no national registers in England, Scotland and Wales and the national monitoring system in Ireland is in the early stages of development. Epidemiological studies have historically relied on monitoring systems in accident and emergency (A&E) departments or in psychiatric services, but gathering accurate data from either source is difficult. These methods fail to account for p...

Geographic information systems (GISs) with emerging technologies are being harnessed for studying spatial patterns in vector-borne diseases to reduce transmission. To implement effective vector control, increased knowledge on interactions of epidemiological and entomological malaria transmission determinants in the assessment of impact of interventions is critical. This requires availability of...