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BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2013

Open Access 01-12-2013 | Software

REGSTATTOOLS: freeware statistical tools for the analysis of disease population databases used in health and social studies

Authors: Laura Esteban, Ramon Clèries, Jordi Gálvez, Laura Pareja, Josep Maria Escribà, Xavier Sanz, Ángel Izquierdo, Jaume Galcerán, Josepa Ribes

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2013

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Abstract

Background

The repertoire of statistical methods dealing with the descriptive analysis of the burden of a disease has been expanded and implemented in statistical software packages during the last years. The purpose of this paper is to present a web-based tool, REGSTATTOOLS http://​regstattools.​net intended to provide analysis for the burden of cancer, or other group of disease registry data. Three software applications are included in REGSTATTOOLS: SART (analysis of disease’s rates and its time trends), RiskDiff (analysis of percent changes in the rates due to demographic factors and risk of developing or dying from a disease) and WAERS (relative survival analysis).

Results

We show a real-data application through the assessment of the burden of tobacco-related cancer incidence in two Spanish regions in the period 1995–2004. Making use of SART we show that lung cancer is the most common cancer among those cancers, with rising trends in incidence among women. We compared 2000–2004 data with that of 1995–1999 to assess percent changes in the number of cases as well as relative survival using RiskDiff and WAERS, respectively. We show that the net change increase in lung cancer cases among women was mainly attributable to an increased risk of developing lung cancer, whereas in men it is attributable to the increase in population size. Among men, lung cancer relative survival was higher in 2000–2004 than in 1995–1999, whereas it was similar among women when these time periods were compared.

Conclusions

Unlike other similar applications, REGSTATTOOLS does not require local software installation and it is simple to use, fast and easy to interpret. It is a set of web-based statistical tools intended for automated calculation of population indicators that any professional in health or social sciences may require.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
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Metadata
Title
REGSTATTOOLS: freeware statistical tools for the analysis of disease population databases used in health and social studies
Authors
Laura Esteban
Ramon Clèries
Jordi Gálvez
Laura Pareja
Josep Maria Escribà
Xavier Sanz
Ángel Izquierdo
Jaume Galcerán
Josepa Ribes
Publication date
01-12-2013
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2013
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-201

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