Association between pertussis vaccination coverage and other sociodemographic factors and pertussis incidence using surveillance data

Routine vaccination with pertussis vaccines has been successful in driving down pertussis mortality and morbidity globally. Despite high vaccination coverage, countries such as Australia, USA, and UK have experienced increase in pertussis activity over the last few decades. This may be due to local pockets of low vaccination coverage that result in persistence of pertussis in the population and occasionally lead to large outbreaks. The objective of this study was to characterize the association between pertussis vaccination coverage and sociodemographic factors and pertussis incidence at the school district level in King County, Washington, USA. We used monthly pertussis incidence data for all ages reported to the Public Health Seattle and King County between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2017 to obtain school district level pertussis incidence. We obtained immunization data from the Washington State Immunization Information System to estimate school-district level vaccination coverage as proportion of 19–35 month old children fully vaccinated with ≥4 doses of the Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular-Pertussis (DTaP) vaccine in a school district. We used two methods to quantify the effects of vaccination coverage on pertussis incidence: an ecological vaccine model and an endemic–epidemic model. Even though the effect of vaccination is modeled differently in the two approaches, both models can be used to estimate the association between vaccination coverage and pertussis incidence. Using the ecological vaccine model, we estimated the vaccine effectiveness of 4 doses of Diphtheria-Tetanus-acellular-Pertussis vaccine to be 83% (95% credible interval: 63%, 95%). In the endemic–epidemic model, under-vaccination was statistically significantly associated with epidemic risk of pertussis (adjusted Relative Risk, aRR: 2.76; 95% confidence interval: 1.44, 16.6). Household size and median income were statistically significantly associated with endemic pertussis risk. The endemic–epidemic model suffers from ecological bias, whereas the ecological vaccine model provides less biased and more interpretable estimates of epidemiological parameters, such as DTaP vaccine effectiveness, for each school district

Estimation and comparison of salivary calcium levels in healthy controls and patients with generalized gingivitis and chronic periodontitis

Aim: To evaluate salivary calcium levels in healthy subjects and patients with chronic gingivitis and Chronic Periodontitis. Materials and Methods: One fifty subjects in the age range between 20 – 45 years were randomly selected and subjected to periodontal examination using gingival index, plaque index, oral Hygiene Index and clinical attachment loss. Following periodontal examination, subjects were divided in three groups of 50 patients each: Group A: healthy subjects, Group B: gingivitis patients, Group C: periodontitis patients. Saliva samples from the study subjects was collected and subjected to estimation of salivary calcium levels. The obtained results were subjected to statistical analysis. The significance of difference in means was tested by ANOVA test. Results: The levels of salivary calcium increased as the disease progressed from healthy to gingivitis and periodontitis. There was statistically significant difference observed between healthy to gingivitis group and gingivitis to periodontitis group. Conclusion: Salivary calcium levels can be used as a biomarker to assess the periodontal disease progression. Early diagnosis of periodontal disease by estimation of calcium levels in saliva can help in prevention of gingivitis or periodontitis by various therapeutic measures

Data from: Disparities in influenza mortality and transmission related to sociodemographic factors within Chicago in the pandemic of 1918

Social factors have been shown to create differential burden of influenza across different geographic areas. We explored the relationship between potential aggregate-level social determinants and mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic in Chicago using a historical dataset of 7,971 influenza and pneumonia deaths. Census tract-level social factors, including rates of illiteracy, homeownership, population, and unemployment, were assessed as predictors of pandemic mortality in Chicago. Poisson models fit with generalized estimating equations (GEEs) were used to estimate the association between social factors and the risk of influenza and pneumonia mortality. The Poisson model showed that influenza and pneumonia mortality increased, on average, by 32.2% for every 10% increase in illiteracy rate adjusted for population density, homeownership, unemployment, and age. We also found a significant association between transmissibility and population density, illiteracy, and unemployment but not homeownership. Lastly, analysis of the point locations of reported influenza and pneumonia deaths revealed fine-scale spatiotemporal clustering. This study shows that living in census tracts with higher illiteracy rates increased the risk of influenza and pneumonia mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic in Chicago. Our observation that disparities in structural determinants of neighborhood-level health lead to disparities in influenza incidence in this pandemic suggests that disparities and their determinants should remain targets of research and control in future pandemics

1918 Pandemic Influenza Mortality, Chicago USA

Point location and week of epidemic of 8,031 influenza and pneumonia deaths recorded during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic within the city of Chicago. Data was digitized from 1920 City of Chicago Department of Health annual report Date last modified: 25-10-2016. Fields include: ID (FID), indicator of pneumonia (0 or 1, 0 indicates an influenza death, 1 an influenza and pneumonia death), x and y coordinates (with units in meters), and week (sequential week of epidemic). See paper for more details

Fine-scale sociodemographics of Chicago, USA, 1920

Socio-demographic data (including population size, illiteracy, unemployment) of 496 census tracts within the City of Chicago. Data was collected from the 1920 national census

Shapefile of census tract boundaries in Chicago in 1920

Shapefile of census tract boundaries in Chicago in 1920. File included in zip file include IL_tract_a.dbf, IL_tract_a.prj, IL_tract_a.sbn, IL_tract_a.sbx, IL_tract_a.shp, IL_tract_a.shp.xml, IL_tract_a.sh