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H M Rosenberg

Publications and source records attributed to H M Rosenberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer (1973 through 1998), featuring cancers with recent increasing trends.

BACKGROUND: The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), collaborate to provide an annual update on cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. This year's report contains a special feature that focuses on cancers with recent increasing trends. METHODS: From 1992 through 1998, age-adjusted rates and annual percent changes are calculated for cancer incidence and underlying cause of death with the use of NCI incidence and NCHS mortality data. Joinpoint analysis, a model of joined line segments, is used to examine long-term trends for the four most common cancers and for those cancers with recent increasing trends in incidence or mortality. Statistically significant findings are based on a P value of.05 by use of a two-sided test. State-specific incidence and death rates for 1994 through 1998 are reported for major cancers. RESULTS: From 1992 through 1998, total cancer death rates declined in males and females, while cancer incidence rates declined only in males. Incidence rates in females increased slightly, largely because of breast cancer increases that occurred in some older age groups, possibly as a result of increased early detection. Female lung cancer mortality, a major cause of death in women, continued to increase but more slowly than in earlier years. In addition, the incidence or mortality rate increased in 10 other sites, accounting for about 13% of total cancer incidence and mortality in the United States. CONCLUSIONS: Overall cancer incidence and death rates continued to decline in the United States. Future progress will require sustained improvements in cancer prevention, screening, and treatment.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2001

Comparability of cause of death between ICD-9 and ICD-10: preliminary estimates.

OBJECTIVES: This report presents preliminary results describing the effects of implementing the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) on mortality statistics for selected causes of death effective with deaths occurring in the United States in 1999. The report also describes major features of the Tenth Revision (ICD-10), including changes from the Ninth Revision (ICD-9) in classification and rules for selecting underlying causes of death. Application of comparability ratios is also discussed. METHODS: The report is based on cause-of-death information from a large sample of 1996 death certificates filed in the 50 States and the District of Columbia. Cause-of-death information in the sample includes underlying cause of death classified by both ICD-9 and ICD-10. Because the data file on which comparability information is derived is incomplete, results are preliminary. RESULTS: Preliminary comparability ratios by cause of death presented in this report indicate the extent of discontinuities in cause-of-death trends from 1998 through 1999 resulting from implementing ICD-10. For some leading causes (e.g., Septicemia, Influenza and pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease, and Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis), the discontinuity in trend is substantial. The ranking of leading causes of death is also substantially affected for some causes of death. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study, although preliminary, are essential to analyzing trends in mortality between ICD-9 and ICD-10. In particular, the results provide a means for interpreting changes between 1998, which is the last year in which ICD-9 was used, and 1999, the year in which ICD-10 was implemented for mortality in the United States.

Cause of Death↗
PubMed2000

The annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 1973-1997, with a special section on colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: This annual report to the nation addresses progress in cancer prevention and control in the U.S. with a special section on colorectal cancer. This report is the joint effort of the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). METHODS: Age-adjusted rates were based on cancer incidence data from the NCI and NAACCR and underlying cause of death as compiled by NCHS. Joinpoint analysis was based on NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program incidence rates and NCHS death rates for 1973-1997. The prevalence of screening examinations for colorectal cancer was obtained from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the NCHS's National Health Interview Survey. RESULTS: Between 1990-1997, overall cancer incidence and death rates declined. Joinpoint analyses of cancer incidence and death rates confirmed the declines described in earlier reports. The incidence trends for colorectal cancer have shown recent steep declines for whites in contrast to a leveling off of the rates for blacks. State-to-state variations occurred in colorectal cancer screening prevalence as well as incidence and death rates. CONCLUSIONS: The continuing declines in overall cancer incidence and death rates are encouraging. However, a few of the top ten incidence or mortality cancer sites continued to increase or remained level. For many cancer sites, whites had lower incidence and mortality rates than blacks but higher rates than Hispanics, Asian and Pacific Islanders, and American Indians/Alaska Natives. The variations in colorectal cancer incidence and death rates by race/ethnicity, gender, age, and geographic area may be related to differences in risk factors, demographic characteristics, screening, and medical practice. New efforts currently are underway to increase awareness of screening benefits and treatment for colorectal cancer.

Breast Neoplasms↗
PubMed1999

Mortality from Alzheimer's disease: an update.

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degenerative condition that has devastating implications for those afflicted. An estimated 4 million Americans, mainly elderly, have this condition, which is characterized by forgetfulness in early stages and increasingly severe debilitating symptoms as the disease progresses over what can be as long as a 20-year period. As an individual's impairment increases, informal or formal care giving becomes necessary to take care of basic needs. Annually, an estimated $80 to $100 billion dollars are spent on health care expenses or lost in wages for the persons with Alzheimer's disease or their care givers. At later stages of the disease, persons with Alzheimer's disease are bedridden and vulnerable to developing other medical conditions and dying before they would if they did not have Alzheimer's disease (1). Physicians report that Alzheimer's disease caused the death of 21,397 persons in 1996 and contributed to the death of 21,703 additional persons. This information is from death certificates completed by physicians for all deaths in the United States, a fundamental source of information on what caused death for the 2.3 million deaths in the United States. The risk of dying from Alzheimer's disease has leveled off in recent years after rapid increases in the early 1980's and subsequent slower growth in the 1990's. The trend likely reflects changes in attitudes of physicians and the public about attributing Alzheimer's disease as a cause of death as well as the availability of improved diagnostic procedures; the recent leveling in mortality trends from this condition may signal that death certificate diagnoses for Alzheimer's disease are more reliable now. Alzheimer's disease is a major cause of death, which exhibits variations by age, sex, race, and geographic area. This report provides recent mortality data on Alzheimer's disease. A previous report covers historic trends (2).

Age Factors↗
PubMed1999

Annual report to the nation on the status of cancer, 1973-1996, with a special section on lung cancer and tobacco smoking.

BACKGROUND: The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), provide the second annual report to the nation on progress in cancer prevention and control, with a special section on lung cancer and tobacco smoking. METHODS: Age-adjusted rates (using the 1970 U.S. standard population) were based on cancer incidence data from NCI and underlying cause of death data compiled by NCHS. The prevalence of tobacco use was derived from CDC surveys. Reported P values are two-sided. RESULTS: From 1990 through 1996, cancer incidence (-0.9% per year; P = .16) and cancer death (-0.6% per year; P = .001) rates for all sites combined decreased. Among the 10 leading cancer incidence sites, statistically significant decreases in incidence rates were seen in males for leukemia and cancers of the lung, colon/rectum, urinary bladder, and oral cavity and pharynx. Except for lung cancer, incidence rates for these cancers also declined in females. Among the 10 leading cancer mortality sites, statistically significant decreases in cancer death rates were seen for cancers of the male lung, female breast, the prostate, male pancreas, and male brain and, for both sexes, cancers of the colon/rectum and stomach. Age-specific analyses of lung cancer revealed that rates in males first declined at younger ages and then for each older age group successively over time; rates in females appeared to be in the early stages of following the same pattern, with rates decreasing for women aged 40-59 years. CONCLUSIONS: The declines in cancer incidence and death rates, particularly for lung cancer, are encouraging. However, unless recent upward trends in smoking among adolescents can be reversed, the lung cancer rates that are currently declining in the United States may rise again.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Age-adjusted death rates: consequences of the Year 2000 standard.

PURPOSE: For nearly 60 years, official U.S. mortality statistics have been age-adjusted using the age distribution from the U.S. population for the year 1940. A new population standard, the projected Year 2000 U.S. standard, has been approved for use by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). It will be implemented for official U.S. Government statistics published for deaths occurring in 1999. The new standard reflects the older age distribution of the population; 6.8% of the population was age 65 years or more in 1940, as compared to 12.6% projected for 2000. METHODS: This paper investigates the consequences of the new age distribution standard by comparing death rates by time, place, and population characteristics, adjusted to both the 1940 and projected 2000 population standards. RESULTS: The new standard changes the level of the age-adjusted death rate for total mortality and for many causes of death, as compared to the 1940 standard. For example, the 1995 death rate for diseases of the heart is 138 per 100,000 population when adjusted using the 1940 standard, but is 296 per 100,000 using the Year 2000 standard. The new standard may change the comparison of age-adjusted rates if there are substantial differences in the age-specific rates. For example, the ratio of age-adjusted death rates for ischemic heart disease in black relative to white males is 1.07 using the 1940 standard, but is 0.96 using the Year 2000 standard. CONCLUSIONS: The new Year 2000 age standard has the potential to change both levels and comparisons of age-adjusted rates. Age-adjustment is an averaging process, and consequently, has the potential to view the data effectively as a whole while possibly obscuring important age-specific details.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Cause of death as a contemporary problem.

Four characteristics have been identified that affect the contemporary analysis of cause of death: (1) the increasing use of cause-of-death data for public policy; (2) the growing disjuncture between cause of death and cause of poor health; (3) the problem of specifying cause of death for the elderly, who constitute a growing proportion of the population and, accordingly, of mortality; and (4) the impact of technology and medical science on the temporal comparability of mortality statistics. With regard to the first issue, statistical data in general are being used with increasing sophistication throughout society. The public is exposed to all types of data by the media,and is increasingly educated in how to interpret statistics. Government at all levels increasingly uses data to help to help identify priorities, to choose among policy options, and to evaluate outcomes of decision making. Cause-of-death data are but a specific subset of information that are being used to understand social, economic, and health issues and to make more informed private and public choices regarding these issues. Increasing use of any data set is likely to result in better data simply because greater use results in closer scrutiny of data quality with resultant emphasis on evaluation and systematic efforts to improve quality. This is happening to cause-of-death data in the United States. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) initiated major efforts through two national workshops in 1989 and 1991 to improve the quality of medical certification of death through better training of physicians, medical examiners, and coroners. While there is no clear evidence that the initiatives resulting from these workshops alone resulted in data quality improvement, the indicators used by NCHS to measure quality of medical certification point to continued gradual improvement in completeness and specificity in cause-of-death data. The gap between causes of morbidity and causes of mortality is growing because advances in medical science has essentially eliminated many infectious and communicable diseases that previously caused premature death and have considerably reduced the lethality of chronic conditions that previously caused death at earlier ages. As acute conditions have moved into the background, so to speak, a variety of disabilities and impairments have moved forward as sources of illness,pain, and diminished quality of life. As a consequence, the previously clear etching in mortality statistics of a society's health has become blurred by advances in medicine, healthcare, and prevention. Mortality data continue to have value per set and are important to social and medical knowledge because of their availability as a uniquely continuous data set. However, increasingly, a complete and contemporary profile of the health of a society requires data on both morbidity and mortality as complimentary indicators of health and social development. Not only do we need to know of what causes people to die, but also what health conditions aggravate and diminish their lives and, at an aggregate level, that conditions impose the greatest health costs on the community. Increasingly, these are debilitating conditions of the elderly that may diminish life but may not cause death. Medical description of the cause of death of an elderly person has probably never been easy; however, the contemporary extension of life has made the problem more visible and substantial than in earlier times. It is likely that the relatively few octogenarians of centuries past were also afflicted by concurrent medical conditions, and that even younger persons were prematurely afflicted by conditions that are now identified with advanced age. For these population groups, the description of cause of death, as a single and singular initiating event, is problematic.

Brain Neoplasms↗
PubMed1999

Quality of death rates by race and Hispanic origin: a summary of current research, 1999.

OBJECTIVES: This report provides a summary of current knowledge and research on the quality and reliability of death rates by race and Hispanic origin in official mortality statistics of the United States produced by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It also provides a quantitative assessment of bias in death rates by race and Hispanic origin. It identifies areas for targeted research. METHODS: Death rates are based on information on deaths (numerators of the rates) from death certificates filed in the states and compiled into a national database by NCHS, and on population data (denominators) from the Census Bureau. Selected studies of race/Hispanic-origin misclassification and under coverage are summarized on deaths and population. Estimates are made of the separate and the joint bias on death rates by race and Hispanic origin from the two sources. Simplifying assumptions are made about the stability of the biases over time and among age groups. Original results are presented using an expanded and updated database from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study. RESULTS: While biases in the numerator and denominator tend to offset each other somewhat, death rates for all groups show net effects of race misclassification and under coverage. For the white population and the black population, published death rates are overstated in official publications by an estimated 1.0 percent and 5.0 percent, respectively, resulting principally from undercounts of these population groups in the census. Death rates for the other minority groups are understated in official publications approximately as follows: American Indians, 21 percent; Asian or Pacific Islanders, 11 percent; and Hispanics, 2 percent. These estimates do not take into account differential misreporting of age among the race/ethnic groups.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Age standardization of death rates: implementation of the year 2000 standard.

This report discusses the rationale for and implications of the implementation of a new population standard for the age standardization (age adjustment) of death rates. The new standard is based on the year 2000 population and beginning with data year 1999, will replace the existing standard based on the 1940 population. This report also includes a technical discussion of direct and indirect standardization and statistical variability in age-adjusted death rates. Currently, at least three different standards are used among Department of Health and Human Services agencies. Implementation of the year 2000 standard will reduce confusion among data users and the burden on State and local agencies. Use of the year 2000 standard will also result in age-adjusted death rates that are substantially larger than those based on the 1940 standard. Further, the new standard will affect trends in age-adjusted death rates for certain causes of death and will narrow race differentials in age-adjusted death rates. Although age standardization is an important and useful tool, it has some limitations. As a result the examination of age-adjusted death rates should be the beginning of an analysis strategy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Cancer incidence and mortality, 1973-1995: a report card for the U.S.

BACKGROUND: The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) agreed to produce together an annual "Report Card" to the nation on progress related to cancer prevention and control in the U.S. METHODS: This report provides average annual percent changes in incidence and mortality during 1973-1990 and 1990-1995, plus age-adjusted cancer incidence and death rates for whites, blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. Information on newly diagnosed cancer cases is based on data collected by NCI, and information on cancer deaths is based on underlying causes of death as reported to NCHS. RESULTS: For all sites combined, cancer incidence rates decreased on average 0.7% per year during 1990-1995 (P > 0.05), in contrast to an increasing trend in earlier years. Among the ten leading cancer incidence sites, a similar reversal in trends was apparent for the cancers of the lung, prostate, colon/rectum, urinary bladder, and leukemia; female breast cancer incidence rates increased significantly during 1973-1990 but were level during 1990-1995. Cancer death rates for all sites combined decreased on average 0.5% per year during 1990-1995 (P < 0.05) after significantly increasing 0.4% per year during 1973-1990. Death rates for the four major cancers (lung, female breast, prostate, and colon/rectum) decreased significantly during 1990-1995. CONCLUSIONS: These apparent successes are encouraging and signal the need to maximize cancer control efforts in the future so that even greater in-roads in reducing the cancer burden in the population are achieved.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Dental students' attitude to gender roles.

This investigation assessed attitudes held by United States women and men dental students toward professional and sex role concepts. The concepts included: female dental student, male dental student, dentist, adult woman, adult man, wife and husband. These attitudes were evaluated and compared in the context of the students' current and future professional roles and their sex roles. Although there were several differences in attitudes between the two subject groups, the results suggest that the women and men dental students viewed their various roles as consistent with one another. It is particularly important to note that the women dental student is viewed by both gender groups as having professional and sex roles which do not conflict.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Report of the Second Workshop on Age Adjustment.

This report contains a summary of the Second Workshop on Age Adjustment held at the National Center for Health Statistics on June 5-6, 1997. The workshop, which was a follow up to the First Workshop on Age Adjustment (1991), was held to consider changing the standard used for age-adjusting death rates and to develop an implementation plan. This report includes follow up to the recommendations from the first workshop. Participants in the second workshop included representatives from selected Federal agencies, State health departments, nongovernmental agencies, and academia. The participants recommended that the current population standard for age-adjusting death rates be changed from the 1940 standard million population to a standard based on a projected year 2000 population. On August 26, 1998, the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approved the recommendations of the second workshop as departmental policy effective with the 1999 data year. In addition, the proposed change has been widely publicized in presentations to State vital statistics programs and to Federal agencies.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Radiological evaluation of bone status in the jaw and in the vertebral column in a group of women.

Vertebral bone mineral content was determined in a group of 56 women, ages 30-62. These measurements were compared with the status of supporting bone in the jaws (alveolar, molar and bicuspid) and with gingival health. There was a significant decline in vertebral bone mineral content from the pre- to post-menopausal group. Molar and bicuspid measurements were highly correlated. There was some association between lumbar bone mineral content and molar bone status for postmenopausal women. For postmenopausal women, the cases of greatest percent bone loss in alveolar crest were associated with lower lumbar bone mineral content. Gingival health did not confound the bone status measurements. The 56 subjects did not exhibit the degree of reduction in bone density that is observed in the general population. Further investigation using these radiographic techniques may reveal a link between substantial bone loss in the jaw and moderate to severe bone loss in the lumbar vertebrae.

Absorptiometry, Photon↗