Surveillance was enhanced and a retrospective interview study performed in 1998-99 to determine incidence, causes, and costs of foodborne illnesses in Uppsala, Sweden. Sixty-eight percent of the detected foodborne illness incidents were single cases, and 32% were outbreaks. Most (85%) of the incidents came to the attention of the municipal authorities through telephone calls from affected persons. Calicivirus, Campylobacter spp., and Staphyloccocus aureus were the most common etiological agents; meat, meat products, and mixed dishes were the most implicated food categories. The incidence of foodborne illness was estimated to be 38 cases per 1,000 inhabitants per year. The estimated average costs per illness were 2,164 Swedish Krona (SEK) ($246) to society and 500 SEK ($57) to the patient. The annual cost of foodborne illnesses in Sweden was estimated to be 1,082 million SEK ($123 million).
The EuroQol weighting exercise consists of three parts. In the first, the respondents state their own health using five dimensions with three levels in each, and then they rate their own health state on a visual analogue scale. In the second part, respondents attach weights to some of the possible health states. The last part contains questions about background information. The present article presents such weights derived from a sample of the Swedish population. The sample of 1000 Swedish citizens was drawn randomly from a national address register. The overall response rate was 54.2%, though 315 (31.5%) of the responses were ultimately deemed usable. Most of the health states included in the weighting exercise were well-chosen. Most of them were represented by at least one of the respondents. The respondent characteristics that had any influence on the valuation of health states in the weighting exercise was rating of own health, age and level of education, where a higher rating of own health, higher age and lower level of education resulted in higher valuations.
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