Effect of health service and its influence factors in flood disaster areas / 中南大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To explore the effect of health service and its influential factors in flood disaster areas.@*METHODS@#Fifty-five towns were sampled randomly from Dongting Lake area suffering from flood in 1998. The health service level, effect, and its influence factors were investigated retrospectively.@*RESULTS@#The incidence rate of notifiable infectious diseases was 11.7 per thousand, prevalence rate of chronic disease was 51.2 per thousand, infant mortality rate was 43.1 per thousand, neonatal mortality rate was 10.2 per thousand, and the total mortality rate was 554.3/100,000 in Dongting Lake area. The health investment level was significantly associated with the incidence rate of notifiable infectious diseases, the infant mortality rate, and total mortality rate. Duration of flood and income per capita were important factors for the effect of health investment.@*CONCLUSION@#Increasing health investment and residents' income in the flood disaster area, shortening the duration of flood would play positive role in residents' health in the flood disaster area.

Study on index of osteoporosis with height-shortening value for self-examination in middle-aged and elderly population / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To probe into the application value of the height shortening value as the self-examination index of the middle-aged and aged group's osteoporosis or reduced bone mineral density in communities.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Four communities were selected by cluster sampling at random in Changsha city to be the objects of study, among which women were 45 years old or older and men were 60 years old. Difference and the percentage proportion of the height shortening between the height of the research objects which was measured at their youth and the height measured at this study, were calculated. Mineral density of the anteroposterior lumber spine L2-L4, the left femur neck of each object of study with the DPX-IQ dual energy X-ray (DEXA) were both examined. Results examined by DEXA were recognized as "Golden Standards" and different absolute and relative height shortening values were taken as positive cutoff points. Sensitivity, specificity and Youden's index were calculated to draw the receiver operator characteristic curve in order to get the positive cutoff which was most suitable to both sensitivity and specificity, and to calculate the predicative values of that self-examination method among different groups.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>3 cm of height shortened seemed to be the positive cutoff of the self-examination of osteoporosis, and its sensitivity, specificity and Youden's index were 75.4%, 76.7% and 0.521 respectively. 2 cm of height shortened was suggested as the positive cutoff of the self-examination method of reduced bone mineral density, while its sensitivity, specificity and Youden's index were 81.7%, 75.6% and 0.573 respectively. In this self-examination method, positive predicative value was the highest (76.4%; 88.7%) among the women group aged over 65.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Certain height-shortening value could be used as the rough index of screening osteoporosis of reduced bone mineral density, which set a simple and easy way of self-examination for the middle-aged and elderly population.</p>

Years of potential life of residents among different flood areas in Hunan province / 中南大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To determine the damage of different types of floods on the residents health.@*METHODS@#The methods of standard mortality rate (SMR) and years of potential life lost (YPLL) were used to analyze the death of sample residents from flood areas in Dongting Lake in Hunan province.@*RESULTS@#The order of death causes in the soaked area, the collapsed area and the non-flood area was the same. But the mortality rates of residents injury, poisoning and malignant neoplasm diseases in the soaked area and the collapsed area were higher than those of non-flood area. The resident standard rates of years of potential life lost (SYPLL) in the soaked area and the collapsed area were higher than that of the controls, especially in the age group of 30 to 45. The flood-attributed SYPLL in the male was higher than that of the female.@*CONCLUSION@#Flood actually affected the health of residents. The more serious the flood is, the worse the effect is. It is very important to decrease the resident mortality rate of the injury, poisoning and malignant neoplasm, and to pay attention to protect people of 30 to 45 years old in flood areas.

A study on the health status of residents affected by flood disasters / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the immediate and long-term effects of disasters caused by floods on residents health status.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Stratified sampling by ranks of flood disaster occurred in 1996 and 1998, flood disaster areas and control areas were carried out. A retrospective study was also carried out to study all diseases involved during 1996 - 1999.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The incident rates of acute infectious disease in flooding areas in 1996 and 1998 were both higher than those of non-flooding areas (863.181/100 000 and 736.591/100 000, respectively). But there was no different between the incident rate of the first years in flooding areas and that of non-flooding areas. The prevalence rates of 8 kinds of chronic diseases related to circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system, injury and poisonous diseases in flooding areas were also higher than that in the non-flooding areas. The highest incidence rates of most diseases were in the mountainous flooding areas, followed by areas collapsed by flooding, and the lowest were seen in soakedareas by floods. The incidence rates of intestinal infectious diseases and respiratory infectious diseases were lower in areas where prevention and control measures were weak.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Flood could lead to the increase of incidence rates both on acute infectious diseases and non-infectious diseases. Interventions on non-infectious diseases should also be enforced to stop the epidemics when preventing and controlling acute infectious disease.</p>

A research on the public health index related to the comprehensive assessment on floods / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To develop a public health index related to the comprehensive assessment on the impact caused by floods.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) theory was used to establish the initial evaluation system on the impact of floods. Modified-Delphi process was used to screen and determine the indicators and their weights while synthetical scored method was used to establish the comprehensive assessment model. Percentile was used to differentiate the degree of floods. Finally, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis were used to test the differentiability of the model for different degree of floods and the independence of these indicators.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The model of comprehensive assessment on the impact of floods was set up, including six first-ranking indicators and twenty-four sub-indicators. The values of comprehensive assessment were divided into five grades by the percentiles. Verified results indicated that there were significant difference among the five grades (F = 76.11, P < 0.01) and all indicators were independent.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>An index of comprehensive assessment on the impact of floods was established, which could be used to evaluate the impact of floods and to differentiate the degree of flood, which seemed to have the characteristic of reliability, comprehensiveness and practicability.</p>

Study on hospitalization expenses of flood disaster areas' residents of Dongting Lake in Hunan province in 1998 / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the expenses of hospitalization among the population in the flood disaster areas of Dongting Lake in Hunan province in 1998.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Descriptive epidemiologic study were conducted to analyze hospitalization expenses of the residents of 55 villages in flood disaster areas in 1998; single factors analysis and logarithmic linear regression analysis were carried out to explore influencing factors about hospitalization expenses of the residents.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The hospitalization rate was 4.59% with an average hospitalization expenses of 667.42 Yuan in the flood disaster areas' residents of Dongting Lake in 1998. Compared with populations without suffering from flood, hospitalization rate and the average hospitalization expenses of flood disaster Areas' residents of Dongting Lake in 1998 were higher and had significant difference. The average hospitalization expenses in 1998 was affected by flood types, family income, gender, age, literacy, occupation, outcome after leaving the hospital and hospital ranks.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>These results implied that the flood disease aggravated inhabitants' burden of disease in Dongting Lake areas; the factors influencing the average hospitalization expenses were multiple, and synthetic measures should be taken in the prevention and control of flood disaster.</p>