Retrospective validation of a surveillance system for unexplained illness and death: New Haven County, Connecticut.

Objectives: This study investigated retrospective validation of a prospective surveillance system for unexplained illness and death due to possibly infectious causes.

Methods: A computerized search of hospital discharge data identified patients with potential unexplained illness and death due to possibly infectious causes. Medical records for such patients were reviewed for satisfaction of study criteria.

Child pedestrian and bicyclist injuries: results of community surveillance and a case-control study.

Objectives: To describe the dimensions of childhood pedestrian and bicyclist injuries in Long Beach, California, and to identify risk factors for these injuries.

Population: Long Beach residents aged 0-14 years who were involved in an auto versus pedestrian or bicyclist incident that resulted in a hospital visit and/or police response, between 1 September 1988 and 31 August 1990.

Methods: Cases were identified retrospectively using hospital charts, police records, and coroner's reports; demographic, clinical, and situational information were abstracted from the same.

Risks, costs, and the expected complication of re-injury.

Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics of young victims of violence and the risk of rehospitalization due to intentional injury (recidivism) and to estimate the potential cost of these injuries.

Materials And Methods: Trauma admissions from January 1, 1991 to December 31, 1993, at San Francisco General Hospital of youths < 25 years old who were victims of gunshot wounds (GSWs), assault, and stab wounds were screened. Five hundred and fifty-two charts were reviewed after sampling every other chart.

Ambulance collisions in an urban environment.

Introduction: Decisions to send an ambulance with or without lights and siren are made every day. While travel with lights and siren is presumed to have relatively more risk associated with it than travel without, little epidemiologic analysis has been conducted to compare the two modes of travel or to characterize collisions in general.

Objective: To characterize ambulance collisions and assess the risk of traveling with lights and siren in an urban 9-1-1 environment.

Bronchoalveolar lavage in extrinsic allergic alveolitis.

The precise immunopathological mechanism of extrinsic allergic alveolitis explaining the clinical picture as well as the pathological findings is not known. Bronchoalveolar lavage can be a diagnostic help and a method to unravel the pathophysiology of this disease. In the acute stage of extrinsic allergic alveolitis or within 24 h after antigen exposure an increase in the number of neutrophils is seen.