Intent to Receive Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) Vaccine, Compliance with Social Distancing and Sources of Information in NC, 2009

BACKGROUND:Public adherence to influenza vaccination recommendations has been low, particularly among younger adults and children under 2, despite the availability of safe and effective seasonal vaccine. Intention to receive 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) vaccine has been estimated to be 50% in select populations. This report measures knowledge of and intention to receive pandemic vaccine in a population-based setting, including target groups for seasonal and H1N1 influenza. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:On August 28-29, 2009, we conducted a population-based survey in 2 counties in North Carolina. The survey used the 30x7 two-stage cluster sampling methodology to identify 210 target households. Prevalence ratios (PR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated. Knowledge of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) vaccine was high, with 165 (80%) aware that a vaccine was being prepared. A total of 133 (64%) respondents intended to receive pandemic vaccine, 134 (64%) intended to receive seasonal vaccine, and 109 (53%) intended to receive both. Reporting great concern about H1N1 infection (PR 1.55; 95%CI: 1.30, 1.85), receiving seasonal influenza vaccine in 2008-09 (PR 1.47; 95%CI: 1.18, 1.82), and intending to receive seasonal influenza vaccine in 2009-10 (PR 1.27; 95%CI: 1.14, 1.42) were associated with intention to receive pandemic vaccine. Not associated were knowledge of vaccine, employment, having children under age 18, gender, race/ethnicity and age. Reasons cited for not intending to get vaccinated include not being at risk for infection, concerns about vaccine side effects and belief that illness caused by pandemic H1N1 would be mild. Forty-five percent of households with children under 18 and 65% of working adults reported ability to comply with self-isolation at home for 7-10 days if recommended by authorities. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE:This is the first report of a population based rapid assessment used to assess knowledge and intent to receive pandemic vaccine in a community sample. Intention to receive pandemic and seasonal vaccines was higher than previously published reports. To reach persons not intending to receive pandemic vaccine, public health communications should focus on the perceived risk of infection and concerns about vaccine safety

Predictive Analysis on Twitter: Techniques and Applications

Predictive analysis of social media data has attracted considerable attention from the research community as well as the business world because of the essential and actionable information it can provide. Over the years, extensive experimentation and analysis for insights have been carried out using Twitter data in various domains such as healthcare, public health, politics, social sciences, and demographics. In this chapter, we discuss techniques, approaches and state-of-the-art applications of predictive analysis of Twitter data. Specifically, we present fine-grained analysis involving aspects such as sentiment, emotion, and the use of domain knowledge in the coarse-grained analysis of Twitter data for making decisions and taking actions, and relate a few success stories

Long-term effects of flooding on mortality in England and Wales, 1994-2005: controlled interrupted time-series analysis

BACKGROUND: Limited evidence suggests that being flooded may increase mortality and morbidity among affected householders not just at the time of the flood but for months afterwards. The objective of this study is to explore the methods for quantifying such long-term health effects of flooding by analysis of routine mortality registrations in England and Wales. METHODS: Mortality data, geo-referenced by postcode of residence, were linked to a national database of flood events for 1994 to 2005. The ratio of mortality in the post-flood year to that in the pre-flood year within flooded postcodes was compared with that in non-flooded boundary areas (within 5 km of a flood). Further analyses compared the observed number of flood-area deaths in the year after flooding with the number expected from analysis of mortality trends stratified by region, age-group, sex, deprivation group and urban-rural status. RESULTS: Among the 319 recorded floods, there were 771 deaths in the year before flooding and 693 deaths in the year after (post-/pre-flood ratio of 0.90, 95% CI 0.82, 1.00). This ratio did not vary substantially by age, sex, population density or deprivation. A similar post-flood 'deficit' of deaths was suggested by the analyses based on observed/expected deaths. CONCLUSIONS: The observed post-flood 'deficit' of deaths is counter-intuitive and difficult to interpret because of the possible influence of population displacement caused by flooding. The bias that might arise from such displacement remains unquantified but has important implications for future studies that use place of residence as a marker of exposure

Rapid Health and Needs assessments after disasters: a systematic review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Publichealth care providers, stakeholders and policy makers request a rapid insight into health status and needs of the affected population after disasters. To our knowledge, there is no standardized rapid assessment tool for European countries. The aim of this article is to describe existing tools used internationally and analyze them for the development of a workable rapid assessment.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A review was conducted, including original studies concerning a rapid health and/or needs assessment. The studies used were published between 1980 and 2009. The electronic databasesof Medline, Embase, SciSearch and Psychinfo were used.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Thirty-three studies were included for this review. The majority of the studies was of US origin and in most cases related to natural disasters, especially concerning the weather. In eighteen studies an assessment was conducted using a structured questionnaire, eleven studies used registries and four used both methods. Questionnaires were primarily used to asses the health needs, while data records were used to assess the health status of disaster victims.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Methods most commonly used were face to face interviews and data extracted from existing registries. Ideally, a rapid assessment tool is needed which does not add to the burden of disaster victims. In this perspective, the use of existing medical registries in combination with a brief questionnaire in the aftermath of disasters is the most promising. Since there is an increasing need for such a tool this approach needs further examination.</p

Global Pyrogeography: the Current and Future Distribution of Wildfire

Climate change is expected to alter the geographic distribution of wildfire, a complex abiotic process that responds to a variety of spatial and environmental gradients. How future climate change may alter global wildfire activity, however, is still largely unknown. As a first step to quantifying potential change in global wildfire, we present a multivariate quantification of environmental drivers for the observed, current distribution of vegetation fires using statistical models of the relationship between fire activity and resources to burn, climate conditions, human influence, and lightning flash rates at a coarse spatiotemporal resolution (100 km, over one decade). We then demonstrate how these statistical models can be used to project future changes in global fire patterns, highlighting regional hotspots of change in fire probabilities under future climate conditions as simulated by a global climate model. Based on current conditions, our results illustrate how the availability of resources to burn and climate conditions conducive to combustion jointly determine why some parts of the world are fire-prone and others are fire-free. In contrast to any expectation that global warming should necessarily result in more fire, we find that regional increases in fire probabilities may be counter-balanced by decreases at other locations, due to the interplay of temperature and precipitation variables. Despite this net balance, our models predict substantial invasion and retreat of fire across large portions of the globe. These changes could have important effects on terrestrial ecosystems since alteration in fire activity may occur quite rapidly, generating ever more complex environmental challenges for species dispersing and adjusting to new climate conditions. Our findings highlight the potential for widespread impacts of climate change on wildfire, suggesting severely altered fire regimes and the need for more explicit inclusion of fire in research on global vegetation-climate change dynamics and conservation planning

Método modificado de muestreo por conglomerados para la evaluación rápida de necesidades después de un desastre

El método de muestreo por conglomerados puede utilizarse para llevar a cabo la evaluación rápida de las necesidades de salud y de otro tipo en comunidades afectadas por desastres naturales. El método, que se basa en el modelo usado por el Programa Ampliado de Inmunización de la OMS para estimar la cobertura con vacunación, ha sido modificado para que proporcione 1) estimaciones de la población que queda en una zona determinada y 2) estimaciones del número de personas con necesidades específicas en la zona que ha sido afectada por un desastre. Este enfoque difiere del que se ha usado anteriormente a raíz de otros desastres en que las evaluaciones rápidas de las necesidades solo han consistido en estimar la proporción de la población con necesidades específicas. Aquí se propone un diseño de encuesta modificado que se basa en el uso de n x k para calcular la población restante, la gravedad del daño, la proporción y el número de personas con necesidades específicas, el número de domicilios dañados o destruidos y los cambios que sufren estas estimaciones en determinado período como parte de la encuesta