Boston Lower Respiratory Infection Counts for Multiregional Surveillance, 1996-1999

287 census tracts in Boston provided small-count data on lower respiratory tract infections from 1996 to 1999. Peter A. Rogerson of the University at Buffalo designed a Poisson CUSUM method to monitor these geographically pervasive changes. The study found 19% of tracts signaled a departure when monitored individually, rising to 60% when using local neighborhood statistics.

Use Cases

• Developing multiregional syndromic surveillance systems based on small regional counts described in the study
• Testing modified Poisson CUSUM methods that account for time-varying expectations like weekly and monthly effects
• Analyzing geographically pervasive disease increases based on the local statistics approach for tracts and neighborhoods

Strengths

• Data covers a specific 4-year time period (1996-1999) with a defined base period (1996-1998) for comparison
• Focus on small regional counts, with frequencies typically on the order of ≤5, addresses a specific methodological challenge
• Analysis involves a concrete number of geographic units (287 census tracts) from multiple Boston clinics

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Collection Method

Data on lower respiratory tract infections collected from multiple Boston clinics among residents from 287 census tracts.

Time Range

1996-1999

Geography

Boston, Massachusetts, USA (287 census tracts)