Publications by authors named "Rosemary Armour"
Article Synopsis
- Congenital anomalies (CA) significantly contribute to infant mortality and disability, prompting the need for effective surveillance systems to monitor these conditions, particularly through health administrative data.
- This study validated case definition algorithms for CA surveillance in British Columbia by linking birth data with health registries, measuring metrics like positive predictive value (PPV) and sensitivity to assess accuracy.
- Results indicated variable algorithm performance, with higher accuracy for easily recognizable conditions at birth; this suggests that other regions could adopt similar validated definitions to improve CA monitoring and facilitate comparisons across jurisdictions.
Setting: Congenital anomalies (CAs) can cause lifelong morbidity and accounted for 23.2% of infant deaths from 2003 to 2007. In British Columbia (BC), surveillance of CAs has been irregular since the early 2000s.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The British Columbia (BC) Hepatitis Testers Cohort (BC-HTC) was established to assess and monitor hepatitis C (HCV) epidemiology, cost of illness and treatment effectiveness in BC, Canada. In this paper, we describe the cohort construction, data linkage process, linkage yields, and comparison of the characteristics of linked and unlinked individuals.
Methods: The BC-HTC includes all individuals tested for HCV and/or HIV or reported as a case of HCV, hepatitis B (HBV), HIV or active tuberculosis (TB) in BC linked with the provincial health insurance client roster, medical visits, hospitalizations, drug prescriptions, the cancer registry and mortality data using unique personal health numbers.
Fire-related deaths among Aboriginal people in British Columbia, 1991-2001.
Can J Public Health
October 2006
Background: Fire-related mortality rates are known to be higher in Aboriginal people in BC. The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology and context of fire-related deaths in this population.
Methods: All death registrations attributable to fires in the province were identified by the B.