Striking trends in the incidence of health problems in the Netherlands (2002-05). Findings from a new strategy for surveillance in general practice

Background: This study aimed to detect striking trends based on a new strategy for monitoring public health. Methods: We used data over 4 years from electronic medical records of a large, nationally representative network of general practices. Episodes were either directly recorded by general practitioners (GPs) or were constructed using a new record linkage method (EPICON). The episodes were used to estimate raw morbidity rates for all codes of the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC). Multilevel Poisson regression models were used to analyse the trend over time for 15 health p... Mehr ...