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>

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>