Chronic-disease surveillance in Quebec using administrative file linkage - ARCHIVED

Information collection is critical for chronic-disease surveillance to measure the scope of diseases, assess the use of services, identify at-risk groups and track the course of diseases and risk factors over time with the goal of planning and implementing public-health programs for disease prevention. It is in this context that the Quebec Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System (QICDSS) was established. The QICDSS is a database created by linking administrative files covering the period from 1996 to 2013. It is an attractive alternative to survey data, since it covers the entire population, is not affected by recall bias and can track the population over time and space. In this presentation, we describe the relevance of using administrative data as an alternative to survey data, the methods selected to build the population cohort by linking various sources of raw data, and the processing applied to minimize bias. We will also discuss the advantages and limitations associated with the analysis of administrative files.