title: Accuracy of a probabilistic record linkage strategy applied to identify deaths among cases reported to the Brazilian AIDS surveillance database.
abstract: Since record linkage errors can bias measures of disease occurrence and association, it is important to assess their accuracy. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of a multiple pass probabilistic record linkage strategy to identify deaths among persons reported to the Brazilian AIDS surveillance database. An HIV/AIDS national surveillance database (N=559,442) was linked to a total of 6,444,822 deaths registered (all causes) in the Brazilian mortality database. To estimate standard measures of accuracy, we selected all AIDS cases with a date of death registered in the surveillance database from 2002 to 2005 (N=19,750) and 38,675 cases known to be alive in 2006. The linkage strategy presented a sensitivity of 87.6% (95%CI: 87.1-88.2), a specificity of 99.6% (95%CI: 99.6-99.7), and a positive predictive value of 99.2% (95%CI: 99.1-99.3). We observed a small variation in the validity measures according to some putative predictors of mortality. Our findings suggest that even large and heterogeneous databases can be linked with a satisfactory accuracy.
authors.affiliation: Diretoria Regional de Brasília, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Brasília, Brazil. gorettifonseca@fiocruz.br
authors.forename: Maria Goretti Pereira
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: Cláudia Medina
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Coeli
authors.forename: Francisca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: de Fátima de Araújo Lucena
authors.forename: Valdilea Gonçalves
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Veloso
authors.forename: Marilia Sá
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Carvalho
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000401:mortality*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000592:standards*; D018563:Disease Notification / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008498:Medical Record Linkage / Q000592:standards*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011336:Probability; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D055815:Young Adult