Linkages to improve mortality data for American Indians and Alaska Natives: a new model for death reporting?

Racial misclassification is a well-documented weakness of mortality data taken from death certificates. As a result, mortality statistics for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) present, at best, an inaccurate and misleading assessment of mortality in this population. Studies evaluating the quality of race/ethnicity reporting on death certificates have linked data from death certificates to other data sources collected when the decedent was still alive (e.

Medical examiner samples: a source for dengue surveillance.

Post-mortem medical examiner samples may be useful for sentinel surveillance of disorders usually detected by antibody determinations on specimens from ill patients or from surveys. We found anti-dengue IgM positivity in 3% (23/780) and anti-dengue IgG positivity in 77% (597/777) of sera obtained at the Puerto Rico medical examiner (Institute of Forensic Sciences) in December 2000, April 2001, and October 2001. This approach may be a useful alternative for estimating the population prevalence of serologic markers for dengue and other infectious diseases.

Risk factors for infection during a dengue-1 outbreak in Maui, Hawaii, 2001.

Autochthonous dengue virus transmission, last identified in the state of Hawaii in 1945, was detected again in 2001. A seroepidemiological survey in a high-incidence community (Nahiku) and a nearby low-incidence community (Hana Subdivision) was implemented. The two communities studied differed in median household size (two vs.

Leptospirosis during dengue outbreak, Bangladesh.

We collected acute-phase serum samples from febrile patients at 2 major hospitals in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during an outbreak of dengue fever in 2001. A total of 18% of dengue-negative patients tested positive for leptospirosis. The case-fatality rate among leptospirosis patients (5%) was higher than among dengue fever patients (1.