Method for calculating Acute Respiratory Infection rates by Urban Sections from statistics by health providers in Cucuta, Norte de Santander

Abstract

Public health decisions require medical evidence and statistical information produced with academic rigor. Public health departments commonly collect statistics from health providers However, the utility of this data is dependent on the inclusion of individual identifiers or categories such as socioeconomic status or residential areas. The aim of this study is to design a method to map the rate of ARI per USEC in Cúcuta, using statistics of cases reported at the health care provider level and to identify the hotspots with higher rates. The rates of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) in each Urban Section (SECU) of Cúcuta were calculated using the ARI cases reported by health-providing institutions. The analysis used a Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify the geographic distribution of the SECUs and their population density to assign ARI cases by SECU. The number of medical consultations with a diagnosis of ARI in the period 01/01/2018—31/12/2018, were provided by the public health department categorised by health care providers. Three levels of increasing spatial aggregation were established based
on the spatial scope of the public HCPs. To estimate the number of ARI consultations in each USEC, a weight value was assigned according to the proportion of population of each USEC within each level zone . The total ARI consultations per zone in each level were multiplied by the weight value to obtain the ARI cases per USEC in each zone and level. Each USEC would have ARI cases calculated for each of the three levels, therefore, the total ARI per USEC was calculated as the sum of USEC ARI’s in each
level. The hotspots of higher incidence were identified using the local Moran’s I test with EB rate in Geoda. There were 121,378 cases of ARI in Cúcuta over the study period. Of these, 38,236 (32.3%) were reported by hospitals; 43,173 (36.4%) were reported by intermediate HCP; and 37,060 (31.3%) reported by primary health centres or GPs The highest rates of ARI were found in clusters in central south; central west; north and northwest; northeast; central east; and central Cúcuta.