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AUS-NEW: Newcastle Contributor from the MPC: Patrick McElduff

© National Institute for Health and Welfare and the MORGAM Project investigators Last updated: 27 January 2007 For more information, please contact Kari Kuulasmaa (firstname.lastname@thl.fi)

Contents

• Cohort identification
• Cohort recruitment and the baseline examination
• End-points followed up
• End of follow-up period
• Follow-up procedures
• Diagnostic procedures
  • at baseline
  • during follow-up
• Updates

Cohort identification

• Country: Australia
• MPC: 11 - Newcastle
  • Administrative centre: Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
  • Key personnel: Patrick McElduff (Principal Investigator), Annette Dobson (former Principal Investigator)
• RUs:
  • 01 - Newcastle. The local government area of Newcastle includes the coastal city of Newcastle. The area has a large port that is used for the export of coal and some agricultural products. Until recently (1998) the area had a major steel works.
  • 02 - Lake Macquarie. The local government area of Lake Macquarie covers a vast area with underground coal mining and some light industry.
  • 03 - Maitland. Maitland is an inland local government area that contains mining and farming communities.
  • 04 - Cessnock. Cessnock is a mining community containing both underground and open-cut coal mines. Traditionally Cessnock has had high levels of coronary heart disease compared with the other local government areas monitored by the Newcastle Centre.
  • 05 - Port Stephens. Port Stephens is a local government area to the north of the city of Newcastle. The Port and surrounding waterways support a large tourism industry. The area has traditionally been a desired location for retired people.
• RUAs:
  • AUS-NEWa - consisting of all five RUs
• Cohorts:
  • Cohort 01 - Respondents of representative samples of 35-64 years old men and women of the RUs. The baseline survey was carried out in 1983.
  • Cohort 02 - Respondents of representative samples of 25-69 years (35-69 years in RUs 03 and 05) old men and women of the RUs. The baseline survey was carried out in 1988-89.
  • Cohort 03 - Respondents of representative samples of 35-69 years old men and women of  the RUs. The baseline survey was carried out in 1994.

Cohort recruitment and the baseline examination

The cohorts were formed by the respondents of representative sample surveys of the RUs. Electoral rolls were used as sampling frames for the single stage sampling, which was stratified by sex and 5-year age group. The baseline examinations were carried out as part of the WHO MONICA Project, although only subjects below age 65 were reported to MONICA.

The size of the MORGAM cohorts and the response rates of the population surveys from which the cohorts were derived are:

DNA are not available for the cohorts.

End-points followed up

• Deaths: yes
• Non-fatal acute MI: no
• Unstable angina pectoris: no
• Silent MI: no
• Cardiac revascularization: no
• Stable angina pectoris: no
• Non-fatal stroke events: no
• Thromboembolic events: no

End of follow-up period

• Fatal events: 22 December 1998
• Non-fatal events: no follow-up

Follow-up procedures

Sources of data

• National death index: There are two databases containing data on deaths at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare - the AIHW National Mortality Database for analysis of cause of death and the National Death Index (NDI) for researcher access to death data for the purposes of record linkage. The NDI database contains records of all deaths in Australia since 1980. The data are obtained from the Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages in each State and Territory. The NDI database comprises the following variables for each deceased person: name, alternative names (including maiden names), date of birth (or estimated year of birth), age at death, sex, date of death, marital status, aboriginality, State/Territory of registration, registration number. Cause of death information in a coded form is also available. For records up to 1996, only the code for underlying cause of death is available. For records from 1997 onwards, the codes for the underlying cause of death and all other causes of death mentioned on the death certificate are available. This information is derived by linking the National Death Index registration numbers for deaths with the National Mortality Data Base.

Procedures

Diagnostic procedures

At baseline:

• History of MI:
  • Documented: data not available
  • Self-reported: An affirmative answer to an option "Heart attack" under the question "Have you ever been told that you have the following?" was considered as self-reported history of MI.
  • ECG: data not available
  • Rose questionnaire: data not available
• History of cardiac revascularisation:
  • Documented: data not available
  • Self-reported: An affirmative answer to the question "Have you ever had coronary artery by-pass surgery?" was considered as self-reported history of cardiac revascularization. In Cohort 03 also an affirmative answer to an additional question "Have you ever had coronary artery angioplasty performed on you?" was sufficient.
• History of angina pectoris:
  • Documented: data not available
  • Rose questionnaire: data not available
  • Self-reported: An affirmative answer to an option "Angina" under the question "Have you ever been told that you have the following?" was considered as self-reported history of angina pectoris.
• History of coronary heart disease, type unspecified: irrelevant because data on types were available
• History of stroke:
  • Documented: data not available
  • Self-reported: An affirmative answer to an option "Stroke" under the question "Have you ever been told that you have the following?" was considered as self-reported history of stroke.
• History of Diabetes: For Cohort 01, an affirmative answer to the question "Has a doctor or nurse ever told you that you had diabetes?" was considered as history of diabetes. For Cohorts 02 and 03, an affirmative answer to an option "Diabetes" under the question "Have you ever been told that you have the following?" was considered as history of diabetes.

During follow-up:

• Deaths: final official underlying cause of death is available.
• Coronary deaths: The diagnostic classification (item DGNCAT of MORGAM Form 22) was done in the MDC using the ICD-codes of the underlying cause of death provided in item DEATHDU of MORGAM form 25:

  DEATHDU (underlying cause of death, ICD-9)	DGNCAT
  410-414	3
  798	5
  other	7

• Stroke deaths: The diagnostic classification (item DGNCAT of MORGAM Form 23) was done in the MDC using the ICD-codes of the underlying cause of death provided in item DEATHDU of MORGAM form 25:

  DEATHDU (underlying cause of death, ICD-9)	DGNCAT
  430, 431, 433, 434, 436, 437 or 438	9
  other	4

• Nonfatal events: not followed up

Updates to this document

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