All cause mortality and morbidity from Influenza in the City and the Canton of Zurich, 1910-1970

<p><strong>Contact:</strong> PD Dr. Kaspar Staub <a href="mailto:kaspar.staub@iem.uzh.ch">kaspar.staub@iem.uzh.ch</a></p> <p>For the <a href="http://leaddata.ch">LEAD Hub</a>&nbsp;we digitized and analyzed the following historical demographic and epidemiological data for the city and the canton of Zurich the first time:&nbsp;Since the end of the 19th century, the Federal Health Office (Eidgen&ouml;ssisches Gesundheitsamt) published a <a href="https://swisscovery.slsp.ch/permalink/41SLSP_NETWORK/gp9v4j/alma991049771079705501">weekly bulletin</a>&nbsp;on vital statistics, newly reported cases of notifiable infectious diseases, and hospitalisations. For the period January 1910 to December 1970, we have digitized and transcribed the following weekly series:&nbsp;</p> <ol> <li>Weekly deaths for residents and non-residents of the city of Zurich.&nbsp;The quality of these historical vital statistics is assessed to be very good in the literature, incompleteness and migration are no longer a problem as compared to earlier years. However, age-, sex- and cause-specific death numbers were not available on the weekly level.&nbsp;</li> <li>Weekly newly reported cases of influenza-like-illness for the canton and the city of Zurich.&nbsp;This series begins with the introduction of the reporting obligation for influenza in the canton of Z&uuml;rich in mid-July 1918. As these figures do not include mild cases not treated by a doctor&nbsp;and misdiagnoses,&nbsp;they are probably underestimates, but can still track pandemic and seasonal waves.&nbsp;The reporting system and obligation did not change in the observed time period.</li> <li>Weekly new hospitalisation due to influenza in the canton of Zurich. This series ends in 1938.&nbsp;</li> </ol> <p>The original data format in the weekly bulletins are printed, aggregated tables that have been converted into PDFs using a professional book scanner. Transcription of the data was performed by student assistants using a software and running extended quality-controls. The original tables were in German and French, the digitised data set was annotated in English.</p> <p>The digitized data are organized as a spreadsheet and stored in csv format. The data are organized as rows (representing reporting weeks) and columns (see variable list below). For a few weeks, information in the original sources was missing (indicated by 1 in the &ldquo;interpolated&rdquo; variable). In these cases, the missing values were interpolated by averaging the numbers of the week before and the week afterwards.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Codebook:</strong></p> <p><em>Worksheet &quot;Data&quot;</em></p> <ul> <li>StartReportingPeriod&nbsp;=&nbsp;Start&nbsp;date&nbsp;of the reporting week&nbsp;(dd.mm.yyyy)</li> <li>EndReportingPeriod&nbsp;=&nbsp;End&nbsp;date&nbsp;of reporting week&nbsp;(dd.mm.yyyy)</li> <li>Interpolated: 1=value for this week has been interpolated; 0=not interpolated</li> <li>CityDeathsTotal&nbsp;= Total absolute number of deaths (all-causes) in the City of Zurich (residents and non-residents)</li> <li>CityDeathsResidents&nbsp;= Absolute number of deaths (all-causes) in the City of Zurich for residents</li> <li>CityDeathsNonresidents&nbsp;= Absolute number of deaths (all-causes) in the City of Zurich for non-residents</li> <li>CantonCases&nbsp;= Absolute number of reported new influenza-like-illness cases by physicians in the Canton of Zurich (including the City)</li> <li>CityCases&nbsp;= Absolute number of reported new influenza-like-illness cases by physicians in the City of Zurich</li> <li>CantonHospitalisationsFluInfections&nbsp;= Absolute number of new hospitalisations due to influenza-like-illness in the Canton of Zurich (including the City)</li> </ul> <p><em>Worksheet &quot;Population&quot;</em></p> <ul> <li>Yearly population numbers for the City and the Canton of Zurich (<a href="https://hsso.ch">source</a>)</li> </ul>