[A research of letter color visibility in package insert information using simulator].

Package insert of pharmaceutical drug is one of the most prioritized information for pharmacists to secure safety of patients. However, the color of character, size, font and so on are various company by company product to product from a viewpoint of visibility. It may be cause a serious accident in case visibility is unclear, although it is the most important information. Moreover, package insert with high visibility is required for color vision defectives from a viewpoint of a universal design. Then, the authors selected the package insert which has the boxed warning in the ethical pharmaceutical currently stored mostly in the present health insurance pharmacy and quantified the red color using the color meter. We advocate the state of a suitable package insert from a viewpoint of a universal design, whether the red color is high visible or not for color vision defectives using simulator.

Method for detecting health injury from prescriptions at a pharmacy.

A method is proposed to detect the abnormal situations of people's health in case of the unexpected outbreak of a disease by monitoring the daily variations in the prescriptions at a pharmacy. The abnormal situations are defined as the situations which are not included in the majority (99.9%) of the normal situations. An epidemic probably caused by infectious micro-organisms in a terrorist attack is taken as an example. The drugs for the typical symptoms are monitored: influenza anti-viral agent and common cold drug. This paper demonstrates that the border between the normal and abnormal situations corresponds to the detection limit which is a fundamental concept in analytical chemistry.

Method for estimating the order of influenza infection between adults and children.

This paper puts forward a method for determining the infection order of influenza between adults and children from the daily variations in the amount of influenza anti-viral agents treated at a pharmacy. The time series of Tamiflu Capsule for adults and Tamiflu Dry Syrup for children are compared by means of the cross-correlation function. The results from pharmacies located in Tokyo and Kanagawa show that the influenza infection period of adults is earlier than that of children, indicating the infection order: first adults and second children. However, a pharmacy in Saitama yields no clear result.

Method for estimating infection route and speed of influenza.

This paper puts forward a method for estimating the infection route and speed of influenza from the daily variations in the amount of influenza formulations supplied at distant city pharmacies. The cross-correlation function between the time variations at the pharmacies indicates as for the drug sales, how many days a pharmacy lags behind another pharmacy. The comparison of the time lags between the pharmacies can lead to the estimation of the infection route of influenza. Taking into account the distance between the locations of the pharmacies, we can calculate the infection speed of influenza. Three pharmacies located in Tokyo and its vicinity (Saitama and Kanagawa) are taken as an example. The thrust of this paper is to introduce the new strategy that can take full advantage of the information every pharmacy has in possession.

[Method for estimating influenza propagation pattern from daily variations in drug sales at pharmacies].

A recently proposed method for estimating the route and speed of infectious disease propagation is applied to the data of four pharmacies located in and around Tokyo. The time lags of propagation between distant sites are calculated by the cross-correlation function of the daily variations in the amount of influenza anti-virus agents supplied at the pharmacies. A problem of which are infected earlier with influenza, adults or children, is also treated. The features of this study are the information sources of disease (pharmacies) and quantitative understanding of propagation (time lags).