Performance of French medico-administrative databases in epidemiology of infectious diseases: a scoping review

Abstract

The development of medico-administrative databases over the last few decades has led to an evolution and to a significant production of epidemiological studies on infectious diseases based on retrospective medical data and consumption of care. This new form of epidemiological research faces numerous methodological challenges, among which the assessment of the validity of targeting algorithm. We conducted a scoping review of studies that undertook an estimation of the completeness and validity of French medico-administrative databases for infectious disease epidemiological research. Nineteen validation studies and nine capture-recapture studies were identified. These studies covered 20 infectious diseases and were mostly based on the evaluation of hospital claimed data. The evaluation of their methodological qualities highlighted the difficulties associated with these types of research, particularly those linked to the assessment of their underlying hypotheses. We recall several recommendations relating to the problems addressed, which should contribute to the quality of future evaluation studies based on medico-administrative data and consequently to the quality of the epidemiological indicators produced from these information systems.