Infectious disease data

Data, mostly time-series of case reports, on measles and chickenpox from various regions (England and Wales, New York City, Copenhagen, Baltimore County ...) Also includes some miscellaneous geographic and demographic data that I consider to be useful. Most of these data have been manually entered from published records by various people, and are prone to errors at several levels. All data are provided as is. Feel free to e-mail me (bolker@mcmaster.ca) with questions or corrections, but use at your own risk.

A note on data formats

England and Wales

Most England and Wales data is either from the weekly OPCS (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys) reports, from the Registrar General's Quarterly or Annual Reports, or from various English census reports.

England and Wales aggregate data

E&W 1948-1967 England and Wales, weekly case reports 1948-1967. Format: {YYYY.FFFF cases}
E&W birth rates England and Wales quarterly total births, 1948-1957. Format: {YYYY.FF births}
E&W/Grt Britain family sizes numbers of married women with different family sizes, Great Britain and England Wales, from the 1961 Census Format: {# Great_Britain E&W}
E&W map Coordinates of coastline of England, Wales, and Scotland. Format: {longitude latitude}

England and Wales: 7 major cities

(London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Newcastle)

E&W cities 1948-1987
E&W city populations

Critical community size data

Baltimore

Baltimore (city) monthly cases Format: {YYYY.FFF cases}
sporadic data on Baltimore demography (date, pop size, total births, resident births, total deaths, resident deaths)

Copenhagen

Copenhagen monthly cases {YYYY.FFF cases}
Copenhagen annual birth rates (units??? births per 100000??)

New York City

These data have not been carefully checked, but they appear consistent with those in the Appendix of Yorke, James A., and Wayne P. London. 1973. "Recurrent Outbreaks of Measles, Chickenpox and Mumps: II. Systematic Differences in Contact Rates and Stochastic Effects." American Journal of Epidemiology 98 (6) (December 1): 469-482. (That source does not contain the demographic data, and includes case reports up through mid-1972, along with chickenpox and mumps for NYC and the measles data for Baltimore. It also contains the following footnote:

During the 1941 disease year, over 85,500 cases of measles -- more than twice the number of any other year -- were reported in New York City. All boroughs showed proportional increases, the relative percentages being the same as in other high years, and, beginning in the fall, all months showed exceptionally high totals. The reasons for the unusual outbreak are not clear. After two successive low years a high year would be expected in 1941. Unlike other years, several newspaper articles about the outbreak began appearing in February of 1941 and perhaps more than the usual one in five to seven cases were reported that spring. For measles in New York City, the 1941 disease year is excluded from the study.

NYC monthly cases {YYYY.FFF cases}
NYC misc. demography {year, births, resident births, deaths, resident deaths, population}

Those interested in disease data may also want to visit the International Infectious Disease Data Archive at McMaster University.