The Use of Medical Record Linkage for Population and Genetic Studies^[*)]

Methods are described for deriving personal and family histories of birth, marriage, procreation, ill health and death, for large populations, from existing civil registrations of vital events and the routine records of ill health. Computers have been used to group together and »link« the separately derived records pertaining to successive events in the lives of the same individuals and families, rapidly and on a large scale. Most of the records employed are already available as machine readable punchcards and magnetic tapes, for statistical and administrative purposes, and only minor modifications have been made to the manner in which these are produced.

As applied to the population of the Canadian province of British Columbia (currently about 2 million people) these methods have already yielded substantial information on the risks of disease: a) in the population, b) in relation to various parental characteristics, and c) as correlated with previous occurrences in the family histories.

Der Autor beschreibt Methoden zur Erstellung von personalen und Familienchroniken über Geburt, Heirat, Fortpflanzung, Krankheit und Tod für ganze Populationen unter Benutzung vorliegender Zivilurkunden und Krankengeschichten. Mit Hilfe von Computern wurden diese getrennt angefertigten Urkunden zusammengeordnet und mit den aufeinanderfolgenden Lebensereignissen der betreffenden Personen bzw. Sippen schnell und in großem Maßstab zusammengekoppelt. Die meisten der benutzten Unterlagen liegen bereits in maschinenlesbarer Form (Lochkarten, Magnetbänder) für statistische und administrative Zwecke vor und konnten mit nur geringfügigen Änderungen direkt übernommen werden. In der praktischen Erprobung an der.Bevölkerung von British-Columbia (derzeit etwa 2 Millionen Menschen) haben diese Methoden bereits wesentliche Informationen über das Krankheitsrisiko geliefert, und zwar a) für die Gesamtpopulation, b) in Beziehung zu verschiedenen elterlichen Charakteristika und c) in Bezug auf frühere Ereignisse in der Familienanamnese.

^*) Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the German Society for Medical Documentation and Statistics, Bochum, 3. 9. — 2. 10. 1968.

Publication History

Publication Date:
09 February 2018 (online)

• References

• 1 Kennedy J. M, Newcombe H. B, Okazaki E. A, Smith M. E. Computer Melhods for Family Linkage of Vital and Health Records. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited; Chalk River, Ontario: Document AECL-2222, 1965
• 2 Newcombe H. B. Record Linking: The design of efficient systems for linking records into individual and family histories. Amer. J. hum. Genet. 19: 335-359 1967;
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• 6 Smith M. E, Schwautz R. R, Newcombe H. B. Computer Methods for Extracting Sibship Data from Family Groupings of Records. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited; Chalk River, Ontario: Document AECL-2530, 1965