Population-level susceptibility, severity and spread of pandemic influenza: design of, and initial results from, a pre-pandemic and hibernating pandemic phase study using cross-sectional data from the Health Survey for England (HSE)

Fragaszy EB, Quinlivan M, Breuer J, Craig R, Hutchings S, Kidd M, Mindell J, Hayward AC
Record ID 32013000911
English
Authors' objectives: Assessing severity and spread of a novel influenza strain at the start of a pandemic is critical for informing a targeted and proportional response. It requires community-level studies to estimate the burden of infection and disease. Rapidly initiating such studies in a pandemic is difficult. The study aims to establish an efficient system allowing real-time assessment of population susceptibility, spread of infection and clinical attack rates in the event of a pandemic.
Authors' recommendations: The HSE's underestimation of illness rates during the first two waves of the pandemic is probably due to recall bias and the limitation of being able to report only one illness when multiple illnesses per season can occur. Changes to the illness questions (reporting only recent illnesses) should help minimise these issues. Additional prospective follow-up could improve measurement of disease incidence. The representative nature of the HSE allows accurate measurements of vaccine uptake.
Details
Project Status: Completed
URL for project: http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/projects/hta/114609
Year Published: 2015
URL for published report: http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/phr/phr03060/#/abstract
English language abstract: An English language summary is available
Publication Type: Not Assigned
Country: England, United Kingdom
MeSH Terms
  • Pandemics
Contact
Organisation Name: NIHR Public Health Research programme
Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK
Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk
Copyright: Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO
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