Comparison of two statistical techniques for the surveillance of birth defects through a Monte Carlo simulation.
In a multi-hospital surveillance system for detecting increases in congenital malformation rates, the performance of the set technique applied individually to hospitals and of the cumulative sum (Cusum) technique applied to the aggregate of hospitals has been compared using a Monte Carlo method. The Cusum technique appears to be both more sensitive to real increases and less likely to issue false alarms.
D003201:Computers; D000013:Congenital Abnormalities / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007558:Italy; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013223:Statistics as Topic