INTRODUCTION Accurate cause-of-death reporting is required for mortality data to validly inform public health programming and evaluation. Research demonstrates overreporting of heart disease on New York City death certificates. We describe changes in reported causes of death following a New York City health department training conducted in 2009 to improve accuracy of cause-of-death reporting at...

BACKGROUND Cause-specific mortality data are important to monitor trends in mortality over time. Medical records provide reliable documentation of the causes of deaths occurring in hospitals. This study describes all causes of mortality reported at hospitals in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria. METHODS Deaths reported in 15 secondary and tertiary FCT hospitals occurring from Jan...

OBJECTIVE Currently, an emergency ambulance is dispatched to all cardiac arrest victims. This study aimed to determine the outcome of patients with a dispatch code of 09B01 ("obvious death") and considers the appropriateness of dispatching a non-emergency response. METHODS Dispatch records, patient report forms, and hospital records were reviewed to determine patient outcome. RESULTS Within...

As Delaware's adult obesity crisis continues to be a leading public health concern, we evaluated Delaware's 1999-2014 vital records to examine the association between obesity and mortality. We used the Delaware population death records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER database and the Delaware Health Statistics Center (DHSC). Together with the vital records, we i...

OBJECTIVE This study is aimed at determining pregnancy outcome of cases of jaundice in pregnancy over a 10 year period at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. METHODOLOGY All case records of patients with jaundice in pregnancy over a 10-year period from 1st January 1992 through 31st December 2001 were retrieved from the medical records office of the hospital and analysed. RESULTS During...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate associations between post-operative complications in patients who survive surgery and in-hospital deaths and lengths of hospital stays of patients who undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery METHODS Patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery and survived the operating theater were randomly selected. Information on complications and hospital lengths ...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this analysis was to describe the presence and timing of do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders for imminently dying patients in VA Medical Centers, and to examine factors associated with these processes. METHODS Data on DNR orders in the last 7 days of life were abstracted from the medical records of 1,069 veterans who had died in one of six VA hospitals in 2005. RESULTS...

OBJECTIVES In clinical trials, adverse events are usually self-reported but may be adjudicated if serious or of particular interest. After adjudicating cardiovascular events for a 5-year calcium supplement trial, we observed discrepancies between self-reported and verified events. We systematically analysed those differences to assess their importance. DESIGN Secondary analysis of adverse car...

This article reviews and summarizes research on death row inmates. The contributions and weaknesses of death row demographic data, clinical studies, and research based on institutional records are critiqued. Our analysis shows that death row inmates are overwhelmingly male and disproportionately Southern. Racial representation remains controversial. Frequently death row inmates are intellectual...

Adverse reproductive outcomes were sought via medical records of 14 central Arkansas hospitals serving a five county area encompassing 28, 102 live births in the 1980 to 1982 study period. This population-based study estimated the overall congenital anomaly case incidence to be 3.5 percent of live births. Information on pregnancy history of the cases or on parental occupations was often not rec...