PMID- 10728542
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20000419
LR  - 20190503
IS  - 1353-8047 (Print)
IS  - 1353-8047 (Linking)
VI  - 6
IP  - 1
DP  - 2000 Mar
TI  - Children are not goldfish--mark/recapture techniques and their application to 
      injury data.
PG  - 46-50
AB  - OBJECTIVES: Mark/recapture (or capture-recapture) is a simple technique commonly 
      applied to estimate the hypothetical total (including undercount) in a register 
      composed of cases from two or more independent and separately incomplete case 
      lists. This paper seeks to illustrate serious drawbacks in the use of the 
      mark/recapture technique when applied to injuries. SETTING AND SUBJECTS: 
      Northumbrian children under 15 years of age who were seriously injured in motor 
      vehicle accidents (MVAs) over a five year period ascertained from two data 
      sources: police reports and hospital inpatient records. METHODS: Individuals (n) 
      appearing in both police (S) and hospital (H) case lists are identified using 
      various matching criteria. The separate and combined influence of age, sex, and 
      casualty class (cyclist, passengers, pedestrians) on the probability of such 
      matching is estimated using multivariate techniques. The hypothetical total 
      incidence of child MVA victims (N) is calculated from N = (S x H)/n. MAIN 
      OUTCOMES: Estimates of the incidences of "serious" injuries in MVAs under various 
      conditions of stratification and matching. The overall procedure is tested for 
      conformity with accepted criteria for valid use of mark/recapture. RESULTS: About 
      one third of the 1009 police and 836 hospital records could be exactly matched. 
      There were significant variations in matching proportions by class of accident 
      (pedestrian v passenger v cyclist). This selective recapture or "heterogeneity" 
      was not affected by sex, but was independently influenced by the age of the 
      child. Further uncertainty was introduced when matching criteria were slightly 
      relaxed. Estimates of the total population of children with serious injuries vary 
      accordingly from 1729 to 2743. A number of plausible reasons why these two data 
      sources might not be unbiased or mutually independent samples of the total target 
      population are proposed as explanations for this heterogeneity. CONCLUSION: This 
      typical example of two sample mark/recapture estimation in an epidemiological 
      setting can be shown to violate virtually all the requirements for valid use of 
      the technique. Very little can be deduced accurately about the scale or 
      characteristics of an unobserved group by the use of mark/recapture applied to 
      two overlapping health event registers.
FAU - Jarvis, S N
AU  - Jarvis SN
AD  - Department of Child Health, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, UK.
FAU - Lowe, P J
AU  - Lowe PJ
FAU - Avery, A
AU  - Avery A
FAU - Levene, S
AU  - Levene S
FAU - Cormack, R M
AU  - Cormack RM
LA  - eng
PT  - Comparative Study
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PL  - England
TA  - Inj Prev
JT  - Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent 
      Injury Prevention
JID - 9510056
SB  - IM
CIN - Inj Prev. 2000 Mar;6(1):1-2. PMID: 10728531
MH  - Accidents, Traffic/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - Adolescent
MH  - Age Distribution
MH  - Bias
MH  - Child
MH  - Child, Preschool
MH  - Data Interpretation, Statistical
MH  - *Epidemiologic Methods
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Incidence
MH  - Injury Severity Score
MH  - Male
MH  - *Motorcycles
MH  - Multivariate Analysis
MH  - Predictive Value of Tests
MH  - Probability
MH  - Registries
MH  - Risk Factors
MH  - Sensitivity and Specificity
MH  - Sex Distribution
MH  - Survival Analysis
MH  - United Kingdom/epidemiology
MH  - Wounds and Injuries/classification/*epidemiology
PMC - PMC1730569
EDAT- 2000/03/23 09:00
MHDA- 2000/04/25 09:00
PMCR- 2003/03/01
CRDT- 2000/03/23 09:00
PHST- 2000/03/23 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2000/04/25 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2000/03/23 09:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2003/03/01 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 10.1136/ip.6.1.46 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Inj Prev. 2000 Mar;6(1):46-50. doi: 10.1136/ip.6.1.46.