Abstract
Studies of the side effects of drugs have been conducted in the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in Southern California for several years. To conduct case control studies, cases are identified from the hospital records which are stored in computer files, and controls are selected from the Health Plan population and can be matched for age, gender, duration of Plan membership and membership in the Plan at diagnosis. Ascertainment of drug histories and other histories of interest is feasible through manual review of the clinical record, which contains identifying information, history of prescriptions and various other characteristics of patients. Follow-up studies are conducted based on identifying populations of patients exposed to a drug of interest through a computer system which has been recently introduced to the Plan and enables identification of all patients exposed to a drug of interest. Comparison patients are selected as patients using drugs with similar indications or samples of patients selected from the Health Plan with similar characteristics as those who are exposed to the drug of interest. The size of the population is approximately 1.8 million and the age/gender distributions are similar to those of the US population. These characteristics make epidemiologic studies of drug effects practical in this setting. Further work in these areas is being contemplated, especially case-control studies and follow-up studies of newly marketed drugs.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.