Space-time clusters of adverse health events as a means of early detection of departure from planned containment

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:6027118

Aldrich, T E; Easterly, C E

Studies of rare health events offer a novel means for assessing community health impacts from excursions of hazardous contaminants into the ambient environment. Clusters of these infrequent, adverse health occurrences provide sentinel phenomena to epidemiologists for the purpose of formulating preventive strategies and decision rules. The goal of early identification and interpretation of these case clusters has led to the development of a variety of statistical methods. This presentation provides an overview of these techniques, many of which assume infectious disease processes that may reasonably be translated as a common source exposure. Population-based disease registries are substantial sources of data for conducting studies of small area case clusters near contaminated waste sites. The strategy of population surveillance has found initial acceptance as a means of directing environmental health actions and providing a safeguard for public health. The methods discussed are possible choices for analyses directed to cancer or birth defect data in order to identify possible case clusters of rare events. Suggestions are offered for interpreting case clusters of disease and a model, semiquantitative decision process is proposed for use in determining public health action or policy. 26 refs., 1 fig., 1 tab.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6027118
• Report Number(s): CONF-871075-13; ON: DE88001439
• Resource Relation: Conference: 3. Oak Ridge model conference on waste problems, Oak Ridge, TN, USA, 13 Oct 1987; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
DISEASE INCIDENCE
STATISTICS
EPIDEMIOLOGY
NEOPLASMS
CLUSTER MODEL
FREQUENCY ANALYSIS
HUMAN POPULATIONS
PUBLIC HEALTH
RISK ASSESSMENT
SPACE DEPENDENCE
TIME DEPENDENCE
DISEASES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MATHEMATICS
NUCLEAR MODELS
POPULATIONS
552000* - Public Health