What is the Lindex?
The Lindex is the first ethnic database of disease. Since
1973 the Dr. Lindenthal has been collecting and reviewing
studies dealing with the disease experience of American
and Canadian Jews. Approximately 95% of this population
is Ashkenazic (German or East European) in origin. The others
are Sephardic Jews who originate in Spain and North Africa.
Over the decades and with the advent of new technologies,
including hardware and software packages for the personal
computer, it became evident that the work that began with
a series of typed reviews could be expanded into a powerful
research tool. A database was thus created and named the
Lindex.
There is no comparable database for any ethnic group that
covers this array of diseases in this detail for a 126 year
period (1874-2000). Data sources include journal articles,
conference proceedings, community, insurance, government,
hospital and vital statistics reports, doctoral dissertations
as well as monographs.
What does the Lindex consist of?
The Lindex consists of two separate parts, the MicroLindex
and the MacroLindex.
MicroLindex:
The MicroLindex is a database that records numerous variables
of each study in the Lindex. These variables include: Lindex
number, ICD number, name of the disease, date of study,
date of publication, name(s) of author(s), title of article,
title of publication, volume number, page(s), study design
(cross sectional, case report, literary/historical review),
nature of the study (morbidity, mortality, morbidity/mortality),
source(s) of data (clinical, laboratory, record reviews,
questionnaire), findings (higher, lower, no differences,
significantly higher, significantly lower) as well as locations
of study groups, and the locations of the authors.
MacroLindex:
The second major component of this study is known as the
MacroLindex which involves a review of each disease associated
with every one of the publications in text form. Each Lindex
entry consists of at least one and more often several or
more paragraphs.