Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31803579›Full record

ArticlePublic health action2019

Identifying exceptional malaria occurrences in the absence of historical data in South Sudan: a method validation.

G Benedetti, R A White, H Akello Pasquale, J Stassijns, W van den Boogaard, P Owiti, R Van den Bergh

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Public health action, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

G BenedettiOperational Research Unit, Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.
R A WhiteDepartment of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Modelling, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
H Akello PasqualeNational Malaria Control Programme, National Ministry of Health, Juba, Republic of South Sudan.
J StassijnsMedical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.
W van den BoogaardOperational Research Unit, Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.
P OwitiAcademic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), Eldoret, Kenya.
R Van den BerghOperational Research Unit, Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Centre Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundDetecting unusual malaria events that may require an operational intervention is challenging, especially in endemic contexts with continuous transmission such as South Sudan. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) utilises the classic average plus standard deviation (AV+SD) method for malaria surveillance. This and other available approaches, however, rely on antecedent data, which are often missing.

objectiveTo investigate whether a method using linear regression (LR) over only 8 weeks of retrospective data could be an alternative to AV+SD.

designIn the absence of complete historical malaria data from South Sudan, data from weekly influenza reports from 19 Norwegian counties (2006-2015) were used as a testing data set to compare the performance of the LR and the AV+SD methods. The moving epidemic method was used as the gold standard. Subsequently, the LR method was applied in a case study on malaria occurrence in MSF facilities in South Sudan (2010-2016) to identify malaria events that required a MSF response.

resultsFor the Norwegian influenza data, LR and AV+SD methods did not perform differently (

conclusionThe LR method seems a plausible alternative to the AV+SD method in situations where retrospective data are missing.

Indexed as

data availabilitydisease surveillancelinear regressionMédecins Sans Frontièresoperational research

Identifiers

PMID31803579
PMCPMC6827490

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.