Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems

Data on the elderly are rarely collected in humanitarian emergencies. During a refugee crisis in South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières developed a prospective mortality surveillance system collecting data for those aged ≥50 years and found that the elderly were dying at five times the rate of those...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: du Cros, Philipp, Venis, Sarah, Karunakara, Unni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2013
Materias:
Commentary
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24114674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/trstmh/trt085
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author du Cros, Philipp
Venis, Sarah
Karunakara, Unni
author_facet du Cros, Philipp
Venis, Sarah
Karunakara, Unni
author_sort du Cros, Philipp
collection PubMed
description Data on the elderly are rarely collected in humanitarian emergencies. During a refugee crisis in South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières developed a prospective mortality surveillance system collecting data for those aged ≥50 years and found that the elderly were dying at five times the rate of those aged 5–49 years. Practical and ethical issues arose. Were reported ages accurate? Since no baseline exists, what does the mortality rate mean? Should programmatic changes be made without evidence that these would reduce the elderly mortality rate? We outline issues to be addressed to enable informed decisions on response to elderly populations in emergency settings.
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spelling pubmed-40232762014-05-19 Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems du Cros, Philipp Venis, Sarah Karunakara, Unni Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg Commentary Data on the elderly are rarely collected in humanitarian emergencies. During a refugee crisis in South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières developed a prospective mortality surveillance system collecting data for those aged ≥50 years and found that the elderly were dying at five times the rate of those aged 5–49 years. Practical and ethical issues arose. Were reported ages accurate? Since no baseline exists, what does the mortality rate mean? Should programmatic changes be made without evidence that these would reduce the elderly mortality rate? We outline issues to be addressed to enable informed decisions on response to elderly populations in emergency settings. Oxford University Press 2013-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4023276/ /pubmed/24114674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/trstmh/trt085 Text en © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
spellingShingle Commentary
du Cros, Philipp
Venis, Sarah
Karunakara, Unni
Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title_full Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title_fullStr Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title_full_unstemmed Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title_short Should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? The practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
title_sort should mortality data for the elderly be collected routinely in emergencies? the practical challenges of age-disaggregated surveillance systems
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4023276/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24114674
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/trstmh/trt085
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