Cluster management and the role of concerned communities and the media.

Public health services often have to deal with reported clusters of adverse health events. An important characteristic of disease clusters is that the involved community often is concerned about environmental factors influencing health. To facilitate cluster investigations, a stepwise protocol was developed in the Netherlands, based on international literature.

Chronic respiratory symptoms in children and adults living along streets with high traffic density.

Objectives: To investigate if the population living along streets with high traffic density has a higher prevalence of chronic respiratory symptoms.

Methods: A sample of 673 adults and 106 children (0-15 years), living along busy traffic streets in the city of Haarlem was compared with a control sample of 812 adults and 185 children living along quiet streets. Exposed and control streets were selected on the basis of model calculations of NO2 concentrations.

Case-control study on the association between a cluster of childhood haematopoietic malignancies and local environmental factors in Aalsmeer, The Netherlands.

Study Objective And Design: In Aalsmeer, a horticultural community near the main international airport in The Netherlands, a more than fourfold increase in the incidence of haematopoietic malignancies in young people was observed between 1980 and 1985. In a population based case-control study, the association with local environmental factors was investigated.

Participants: For each patient younger than 40 years of age (n = 14) diagnosed between 1975 and 1989, four age and sex matched controls were selected via local general practitioners.

[Case control study of the relationship between local environmental factors and hematopoietic malignancies in young subjects in Aalsmeer].

In Aalsmeer, a horticultural community near the main international airport in the Netherlands, an incidence of haematopoietic malignancies in young people over four times the national mean was observed in the period 1980-1985. A population based case-control study investigated the association with local environmental factors. For each case younger than 40 years of age (n = 14), diagnosed between 1975 and 1989, four controls, matched for age and gender, were selected via local general practitioners.