Epidemiological Characteristics of Infectious Disease Statistics among the Population of the Orenburg Region in 2013–2020

Abstract

Introduction: Infectious diseases continue to have major health and economic costs. The epidemiological well-being of the population depends not only on availability and quality of infectious disease services, but also on proactive anti-epidemic measures. Objective: To determine incidence and prevalence rates of infectious diseases in the population of the Orenburg Region. Materials and methods: We used data of the Epidemiological Atlas of the Volga Federal District made by the Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Academician I.N. Blokhina, State Reports on Sanitary and Epidemiological Wellbeing of the Population of the Russian Federation for the years 2018 and 2020 and of the Orenburg Region for 2013–2020, and the collection of the Department of Medical Statistics, Medical Information and Analytical Center, for 2016–2020. We applied a descriptive epidemiological method using a retrospective epidemiological analysis for 2013–2020. Pearson’s chi-square test (χ2) was used to assess the significance of differences between the predicted and observed incidence rates. The intensity of the development of the epidemic process was determined by the long-term growth rate. Results: We established that airborne infectious diseases ranked the highest among all infections, and their rank was unrelated to incidence rates of seasonal influenza and acute upper respiratory tract infections. Besides, the unfavorable epidemic situation was predicted only for this group of infections. Conclusions: In the spread of infections with different transmission modes, the rising trend of the epidemic process was established only for airborne infectious diseases. Modeling of the development of epidemic processes produced similar estimates for the regional population.