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Missed opportunities: an assessment of legionellosis surveillance in Allegheny County

Hamilton, Lindsay (2014) Missed opportunities: an assessment of legionellosis surveillance in Allegheny County. Master Essay, University of Pittsburgh.

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Abstract

Since the first outbreak and discovery of the pneumonia-causing bacteria Legionella in 1976 at a hotel convention in Philadelphia, there have been major advances in scientific knowledge about the disease, including the creation and improvements of diagnostic tests. There is still a serious lack of information due to undiagnosed cases, incomplete surveillance of the disease, and a general lack of research on the effectiveness of remediation methods. In partnership with the Allegheny County Health Department, I started a project with the goals of 1) finding odds of having certain risk factors when developing legionellosis, 2) finding the relative risk of having a repeat case in a long-term care facility or SHR after environmental testing, and 3) finding the relative risk of having a repeat case in a long-term care facility after a given remediation recommendation, all using PA-NEDSS elderly and health-care exposed legionellosis cases from 2003-2013. When it became apparent that there was too much missing or misclassified data for the analysis to yield reliable results, the focus of the project shifted and its goals became to 1) assess the amount or proportion of missing data for all variables of interest, 2) analyze the present surveillance system, and 3) make recommendations based on my analysis of the surveillance system. Several important aspects of each case report were analyzed in order to summarize the effect of missing data in the surveillance system. CDC guidelines for evaluating a public health surveillance system were used to summarize problems in the PA-NEDSS system and to make appropriate recommendations. To know how well a surveillance system is working at a local or state health department can significantly contribute to public health knowledge and practice since a surveillance system can directly and indirectly contribute to monitoring health trends, understanding risk factors, and determining the most effective prevention methods for a given population.

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Details

Item Type: Other Thesis, Dissertation, or Long Paper (Master Essay)
Status: Unpublished
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Hamilton, Lindsay
Contributors:
ContributionContributors NameEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Committee ChairVoorhees, Ronaldrev12@pitt.eduREV12UNSPECIFIED
Committee MemberCastle, Nicholascastlen@pitt.eduCASTLENUNSPECIFIED
Committee MemberTalbott, Evelyneot1@pitt.eduEOT1UNSPECIFIED
Date: April 2014
Date Type: Publication
Access Restriction: No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately.
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh
Institution: University of Pittsburgh
Schools and Programs: School of Public Health > Epidemiology
Degree: MPH - Master of Public Health
Thesis Type: Master Essay
Refereed: Yes
Date Deposited: 26 May 2015 19:09
Last Modified: 23 Sep 2023 10:55
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/21519

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