Sentinel monitoring of general community health during the 1998 World Football Cup

Background: Present knowledge of the consequences of mass gatherings for th e health of the community is scant. Our objective was to determine the impa ct of the 1998 World Football Cup on general community health. Methods: We set up an electronic sentinel disease surveillance, before, dur ing and after the World Football Cup tournament held in France from June 10 to July 12, 1998. Medical activity, and the daily number of cases of commu nicable, environmental, and societal diseases relating to mass gatherings w ere surveyed. The incidence of the pathologies surveyed in real time during and after the World Cup versus the pre-Cup reference period was the main o utcome measure. Five sentinel networks participated, comprising 553 general practitioners, 60 hospital adult emergency departments. 19 private emergen cy community services, 4 community health centres, and the medical centre o f the Paris airports. Results: Throughout the 66-day study period, physicians reported 558,829 me dical encounters via 21,532 connections to the computer. Compared to the re ference period, the level of medical activity reflected by the pathological items surveyed remained stable during the study period. Conclusion: The 1998 World Football Cup had no epidemiological impact on ge neral community health, as observed by sentinel networks located downstream of the specific health services provided by the French authorities to ensu re high standards of safety.