TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Chapter 4. Medical Surveillance A1 - Greenberg, Raymond S. A1 - Daniels, Stephen R. A1 - Flanders, W. Dana A1 - Eley, John William A1 - Boring, John R. PY - 2005 T2 - Medical Epidemiology, 4e AB - Medical surveillance is undertaken to identify changes in the distributions of diseases in order to prevent or control these conditions within a population. A comparison of incidence rates across populations can help to determine characteristics of populations at higher (and lower) risk. Surveillance of deaths is convenient because the information is virtually complete, standardized and inexpensive to obtain. Nevertheless, data collected from death certificates may be limited by omitted or inaccurate information. Age adjustment is used to remove the influence of any age differences when comparing the disease frequencies of two populations. Premature death measures the years of potential life lost to a particular disease, and therefore weighs most heavily deaths that occur at young ages. SN - PB - The McGraw-Hill Companies CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accesspharmacy.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=545313 ER -