Jf. Annegers et al., The incidence of epilepsy and unprovoked seizures in multiethnic, urban health maintenance organizations, EPILEPSIA, 40(4), 1999, pp. 502-506
Purpose: Studies of the incidence of epilepsy are limited to a few populati
ons in which new cases can be ascertained. Health maintenance organization
(HmO) populations were studied to determine the incidence in a multiethnic,
urban United States population.
Method's: Cases of initial unprovoked seizure disorder or epilepsy while en
rolled in an HMO between 1988 and 1994 were ascertained. Ethnicity was obta
ined from the medical records and was part of a nested case-control study.
Results: There were 197 incidence cases of epilepsy and 275 of initial unpr
ovoked seizure diagnosis. The incidence rate in the age range 0-64 years wa
s 35.5 per 100,000 for epilepsy and 50.9 for initial unprovoked seizure. Wh
en compared with population-based studies, rates were slightly higher in ch
ildren younger than 15, similar for the 15- to 24-year age group, but lower
for ages 25-64 years. The ethnicity-specific odds ratios for initial unpro
voked seizure, by using non-Hispanic white as the referent,were 1.04 (0.73-
1.39) for African-American, 0.97 (0.64-1.48) for Hispanic, and 0.25 (0.08-0
.84) for Asian-American.
Conclusions: The lower rate in the HMO population is presumably due to a he
althy-worker effect. The ethnicity-specific incidence rates do not differ i
n this population.