부산대학교 도서관

The aim of this research is to use the epidemiological method in order to know the magnitude and trends of infectious diseases in Barcelona province during the period 1982-1986 and to evaluate the surveillance activities developed by Health Services about statutory reportable diseases.There have been employed 16.719 sIips and 10.503 epidemiological enquiries correspondent to eight diseases.For national and international comparisons, data from Official Statistics of Spain and from World Health Statistics Annual (WHO) has been employed.For Brucellosis. Shigellosis, Typhoid and Parathyphoid Fevers and Meningococcal Infection, annual age standardized incidence rates of Barcelona are smaller than those of Catalonia and Spain. In this country, incidence rates of this same diseases and incidence rate of Viral Hepatitis are the highest of twenty one countries that have been compared. In contrast, Infections and Parasitic Diseases mortality rates in Spain hold a medium level among all those compared countries.About the activities of surveillance developed by health services in Notificable Disease, the more important conclusions are:1) The completeness of notifications changes selon the different diseases and their evaluation must be done separately.2) There is a tendency to report diseases only if laboratory data are available. Training activities should be done so that physicians understand the practical side of notification and should be able to carry it out under the slight clinical suspicious.3) Clinical and analytical data are given much more often than epidemiological data. Resources of Epidemiological surveillance must be re-orientated to get epidemiological information.4) There have been studied the intervals between the onset of symptoms and the notification (Delay 1) as well as between the notification and the tarrying out of the epidemiological enquiry (Delay 2). In all the diseases with the exemption of tuberculosis, the second delay has be en the longest.5) Notification slips and enquiries with analytical data have longer delays than notification and inquiries without analytical data. So, this kind of data impairs the timeliness of surveillance system.6) Notifications slips and epidemiological enquiries that have longer delays correspond to older people than those of smaller delays.