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Statistical Monitoring Introduction


EUROCAT has thirty years of experience in the detection and investigation of clusters and environmental exposure incidents.  This has included investigation of clusters detected by routine surveillance at local Registry or Central Registry level, assessment of the impact of the Chernobyl accident on the prevalence of congenital anomalies in EUROCAT regions, local and multi-regional assessments of the risk of residence near waste sites, contaminated land or industrial areas including the EUROHAZCON project, and the organisation of two major international workshops: Cluster assessment (Brussels, 1997) and Methodological approaches to the assessment of risk of congenital anomaly due to environmental pollution (Budapest 2007). 

 

More recently, EUROCAT performs annual statistical monitoring for both trends and clusters in time in order to detect signals of new or increasing teratogenic exposures which may require public health action.  This relates to two of EUROCAT’s objectives:

 

• to provide essential epidemiologic information on congenital anomalies in Europe
• to co-ordinate the detection of, and response, to clusters and early warning of teratogenic exposures

Statistical monitoring is essentially a screening method to scrutinise data regularly and systematically to detect any previously unrecognised increases in frequency of congenital anomalies which may be associated with exposure to teratogenic drugs or environmental chemical pollutants.  An annual Statistical Monitoring Report is published detailing the cluster and trends detected by statistical monitoring conducted at EUROCAT Central Registry and the methodology used.  The annual report also includes the results of the preliminary investigations into the identified clusters and trends carried out by local registries.  It is the responsibility of the local registries to report any concerns to local public health authorities.  EUROCAT annual Statistical Monitoring Reports are available in this section.  The development of the current annual statistical monitoring strategy and full details of the statistical methods used are found in the Statistical Monitoring protocol.