Excess mortality among people with communicable diseases over a 30-year period, Victoria, Australia: a whole of population cohort study.

Background: Understanding mortality burden associated with communicable diseases is key to informing resource allocation, disease prevention and control efforts, and evaluating public health interventions. We quantified excess mortality among people notified with communicable diseases in Victoria, Australia.

Methods: Cases of communicable disease notified in Victoria between 1 January 1991 and 31 December 2021 were linked to the death registry.

Associations between COVID-19 and hospitalisation with respiratory and non-respiratory conditions: a record linkage study.

Objectives: To assess associations between SARS-CoV-2 infection and the incidence of hospitalisation with selected respiratory and non-respiratory conditions in a largely SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-naïve population .

Design, Setting, Participants: Self-control case series; analysis of population-wide surveillance and administrative data for all laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases notified to the Victorian Department of Health (onset, 23 January 2020 - 31 May 2021; ie, prior to widespread vaccination rollout) and linked hospital admissions data (admission dates to 30 September 2021).

Main Outcome Measures: Hospitalisation of people with acute COVID-19; incidence rate ratios (IRRs) comparing incidence of hospitalisations with defined conditions (including cardiac, cerebrovascular, venous thrombo-embolic, coagulative, and renal disorders) from three days before to within 89 days of onset of COVID-19 with incidence during baseline period (60-365 days prior to COVID-19 onset).

Factors involved in intensive care unit mortality following medical retrieval: identifying differences between intensive care unit survivors and non-survivors.

Objective: The study aimed to determine factors related to ICU mortality in critically ill patients transferred by Adult Retrieval Victoria (ARV) medical staff. Patients who died in ICU after interhospital transfer were compared against those who survived.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of ARV cases between 1 January 2009 and 30 June 2010.

Validation of de-identified record linkage to ascertain hospital admissions in a cohort study.

Background: Cohort studies can provide valuable evidence of cause and effect relationships but are subject to loss of participants over time, limiting the validity of findings. Computerised record linkage offers a passive and ongoing method of obtaining health outcomes from existing routinely collected data sources. However, the quality of record linkage is reliant upon the availability and accuracy of common identifying variables.