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A H Burton

Publications and source records attributed to A H Burton.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Provisional country estimates of prevalent adult human immunodeficiency virus infections as of end 1994: a description of the methods.

BACKGROUND: A country-by-country review of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) data was undertaken by the World Health Organization. This paper describes the methods used to make estimates of HIV prevalence. RESULTS: It is estimated that, globally, approximately 16.9 million adults were living with HIV infections at the end of 1994. The majority (66%) of the infections were in sub-Saharan Africa (over 11000000), followed by South and South East Asia (over 3000000). Estimated prevalence rates for HIV infection ranged from less than 1 per 100000 sexually active adult population to 18 per 100 (18%), with a median prevalence of 14 per 10000. In 50 countries the estimated HIV prevalence rate was less than 5 per 10000 sexually active adults. In 15 countries (all in sub-Saharan Africa) the prevalence rate was above 5%. The lowest estimated prevalence rates were seen in Central and East Asia and the highest in Central and Southern Africa. CONCLUSIONS: Estimates of prevalent HIV infections are intended to give an indication of the magnitude of the HIV pandemic but, due to the difficulties in accurately assessing the levels of HIV infections in national populations, should be considered provisional.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1990

Software for data management and analysis in epidemiology.

The collection of data is a lengthy and time-consuming process, but is not an end in itself. For the data to be useful, it is necessary for an appropriate analysis to be made and its results applied. This article describes a computer program for the analysis of epidemiological studies.

Data Interpretation, Statistical↗
PubMed1989

Hepatitis B virus infection among children born in the United States to Southeast Asian refugees.

Since 1975 nearly 1 million persons have entered the United States from Southeast Asia, where infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is hyperendemic. To evaluate the prevalence and patterns of transmission of HBV infection among the children of refugees from Southeast Asia, we studied 196 refugee families with 257 children born in the United States. Of 31 children born in the United States to mothers with infectious disease, 17 (55 percent) had been infected with HBV. Of 226 children whose mothers did not have infectious disease, 15 had HBV infection--a prevalence of 6.6 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 4.1 to 10.7). The risk of infection was greatest (26 percent) among children living in households with children with infectious disease (relative risk, 5.5; confidence interval, 2.3 to 13.4). Exposure to fathers or other adults with infectious disease was not significantly associated with infection. Of children from households with no persons with infectious disease, 3.9 percent (confidence interval, 1.7 to 8.8) were infected. Nearly half (46 percent) the cases of HBV infection among the U.S.-born children of refugees were not attributable to perinatal transmission from a mother with infectious disease. We conclude that child-to-child transmission may be occurring within and between households. Current recommendations to immunize the newborns of mothers with infectious disease are not sufficient to protect all U.S.-born children of Southeast Asian refugees from HBV infection early in life, when the risk of chronic sequelae and premature death is highest. We recommend that the HBV vaccination policy be expanded to include all newborns of Southeast Asian immigrants.

Asia, Southeastern↗
PubMed1983

The impact of publicly funded perinatal care programs on neonatal outcome, Georgia, 1976-1978.

The State of Georgia administers three publicly funded perinatal care programs for medically high risk and/or low-income women: the High Risk Pregnancy Program, the Medicaid Program, and the Maternal and Infant Care Projects. To assess the impact of these programs on infant health, we compared the birth weight distribution and neonatal mortality rates of infants born to women in each program with those of infants of a nonfunded group of women with less than 12 years' education. Infants of women in publicly funded groups were more likely to weigh less than or equal to 2,500 gm at birth than those of women in the nonfunded group. Neonatal mortality rates for publicly funded groups were similar to those of the nonfunded group. The neonatal mortality rates for infants of birth weight less than or equal to 2,500 gm of publicly-funded women were significantly lower than those of the nonfunded women. There were no significant differences between groups for neonatal mortality rates for infants of birth weight greater than 2,500 gm. These findings suggest that publicly funded perinatal care programs may improve neonatal survival of infants of birth weight less than or equal to 2,500 gm of low-income mothers.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Epi Info: a general-purpose microcomputer program for public health information systems.

Epi Info is a general-purpose set of computer programs for word processing, database management, statistics, and graphics developed over the past five years at the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. The programs allow rapid questionnaire construction, data entry, and analysis during epidemic investigation. Both data entry and analysis can be programmed to provide customization and automatic operation for more permanent systems, such as those for disease or injury surveillance. Epi Info is in the public domain and copies may be freely distributed. It requires an IBM-compatible micro-computer with at least 512 kilobytes of memory. Translations into French and Spanish are in progress; a translation kit is available to facilitate translation into other languages.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Alcohol and fatal injuries: temporal patterns.

Although alcohol use has been established as a risk factor for injuries associated with motor vehicle crashes, the role of alcohol for other unintentional and intentional injuries is less defined. A review of 102,401 deaths investigated by North Carolina medical examiners in the period 1973-1983 characterized the temporal patterns of ethyl alcohol in unintentional injury fatalities, suicides, homicides, and persons who died of natural or unknown causes. Victims of homicides (85.9%) and suicides (77.7%) were tested for alcohol more frequently than were fatalities resulting from unintentional injury (67.5%) or natural causes (61.6%). Alcohol was present in 62.8% of homicide victims, 48.6% of unintentional injury fatalities, 35.3% of suicides, and 14.4% of deaths from natural causes. The percentage of alcohol-associated deaths for each manner of death showed little yearly or seasonal variation. Alcohol was most frequently detected in persons fatally injured on the weekend and from 6 PM to 6 AM. This study highlights the magnitude of alcohol's role in intentional and unintentional injuries, especially for persons injured at night and on weekends.

Accidents↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The Epidemiologic Surveillance Project: a computer-based system for disease surveillance.

The Epidemiologic Surveillance Project (ESP) is a computer-based surveillance system for the rapid transmission and analysis of national morbidity data. These data are transmitted weekly by state health department computers to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), using a commercial electronic mail facility (MINET). Participating state health departments transmit data through existing computer systems using a standard record and data transmission protocol. State and national data are rapidly analyzed at the CDC, and reports of these analyses are transmitted through MINET to the states. Maps based on these data and other tabular displays of demographic and epidemiologic characteristics of the diseases being tracked are periodically prepared and distributed. Because the efficiency, speed, and uniformity of tabulation of this system are greater than those of systems that use protocol and telephonic reports of case totals, the ESP may be a model for future surveillance systems.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.↗