Linking Birth Certificates with Medicaid Data To Enhance Population Health Assessment

Gyllstrom, M. Elizabeth; Jensen, Joan; Vaughan, Jane N; Castellano, Susan; Oswald, John

doi:10.1097/00124784-200207000-00008

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…However, there was some evidence of systematic differences for the partially linked records that had no infant hospitalization record (‘mothers only’). This group has slightly higher rates of adverse infant outcomes and associated risk factors, consistent with observations in other studies [10,39-41]. Reduced matching of infant records may be related to the association between missing information, social disadvantage and adverse outcomes, or that severely ill infants with prolonged hospitalization may not necessarily be coded as a birth admission.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Investigating linkage rates among probabilistically linked birth and hospitalization records

Bentley

Ford

Taylor

et al. 2012

BMC Med Res Methodol

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BackgroundWith the increasing use of probabilistically linked administrative data in health research, it is important to understand whether systematic differences occur between the populations with linked and unlinked records. While probabilistic linkage involves combining records for individuals, population perinatal health research requires a combination of information from both the mother and her infant(s). The aims of this study were to (i) describe probabilistic linkage for perinatal records in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, (ii) determine linkage proportions for these perinatal records, and (iii) assess records with linked mother and infant hospital-birth record, and unlinked records for systematic differences.MethodsThis is a population-based study of probabilistically linked statutory birth and hospital records from New South Wales, Australia, 2001-2008. Linkage groups were created where the birth record had complete linkage with hospital admission records for both the mother and infant(s), partial linkage (the mother only or the infant(s) only) or neither. Unlinked hospital records for mothers and infants were also examined. Rates of linkage as a percentage of birth records and descriptive statistics for maternal and infant characteristics by linkage groups were determined.ResultsComplete linkage (mother hospital record – birth record – infant hospital record) was available for 95.9% of birth records, partial linkage for 3.6%, and 0.5% with no linked hospital records (unlinked). Among live born singletons (complete linkage = 96.5%) the mothers without linked infant records (1.6%) had slightly higher proportions of young, non-Australian born, socially disadvantaged women with adverse pregnancy outcomes. The unlinked birth records (0.4%) had slightly higher proportions of nulliparous, older, Australian born women giving birth in private hospitals by caesarean section. Stillbirths had the highest rate of unlinked records (3-4%).ConclusionsThis study shows that probabilistic linkage of perinatal records can achieve high, representative levels of complete linkage. Records for mother’s that did not link to infant records and unlinked records had slightly different characteristics to fully linked records. However, these groups were small and unlikely to bias results and conclusions in a substantive way. Stillbirths present additional challenges to the linkage process due to lower rates of linkage for lower gestational ages, where most stillbirths occur.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Investigating linkage rates among probabilistically linked birth and hospitalization records

Bentley

Ford

Taylor

et al. 2012

BMC Med Res Methodol

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“…In seven studies, it was found that people in minority groups had lower linkage rates [26,27,35,37-40]. Several studies offered reasons for this finding including subjects in minority groups being treated at facilities with less complete data [38], a lower rate of migrants reporting accidents to the police [40], higher rates of non-consent to data linkage [26] and lower likelihood of having social security numbers recorded [35]. Conversely, in one Australian study, Australian-born mothers had lower linkage rates due to more frequent treatment in private hospitals which lacked data on mothers' full names [20].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As data collection practices and training are likely to vary between sites, 13 of 14 identified studies found a relationship between the quality of linkage at different geographic or hospital sites [25-27,29,33,34,38,40-45] with only one study finding no relationship [21]. Darlymple et al examined the use of a record linkage system to track and identify treatment patterns of patients with psychiatric conditions in Ontario, Canada.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Data Linkage: A powerful research tool with potential problems

Bohensky

Jolley

Sundararajan

et al. 2010

BMC Health Serv Res

183

169

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BackgroundPolicy makers, clinicians and researchers are demonstrating increasing interest in using data linked from multiple sources to support measurement of clinical performance and patient health outcomes. However, the utility of data linkage may be compromised by sub-optimal or incomplete linkage, leading to systematic bias. In this study, we synthesize the evidence identifying participant or population characteristics that can influence the validity and completeness of data linkage and may be associated with systematic bias in reported outcomes.MethodsA narrative review, using structured search methods was undertaken. Key words "data linkage" and Mesh term "medical record linkage" were applied to Medline, EMBASE and CINAHL databases between 1991 and 2007. Abstract inclusion criteria were; the article attempted an empirical evaluation of methodological issues relating to data linkage and reported on patient characteristics, the study design included analysis of matched versus unmatched records, and the report was in English. Included articles were grouped thematically according to patient characteristics that were compared between matched and unmatched records.ResultsThe search identified 1810 articles of which 33 (1.8%) met inclusion criteria. There was marked heterogeneity in study methods and factors investigated. Characteristics that were unevenly distributed among matched and unmatched records were; age (72% of studies), sex (50% of studies), race (64% of studies), geographical/hospital site (93% of studies), socio-economic status (82% of studies) and health status (72% of studies).ConclusionA number of relevant patient or population factors may be associated with incomplete data linkage resulting in systematic bias in reported clinical outcomes. Readers should consider these factors in interpreting the reported results of data linkage studies.

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“…Birth certificates contain demographic and select clinical information that is not available from health plan data, yet will under-ascertain important elements such as early trimester drug exposures that are available from health plan pharmacy data. Methods to link administrative data to birth certificate data have been developed since the early 1990s to facilitate public health research, often on a state-by-state basis [29,30]. Efforts to improve the linkage between data sources have continued [31,32].…”

Section: Future Opportunities To Improve Pregnancy-related Research: mentioning

confidence: 99%

Considerations in using registry and health plan data for studying pregnancy in rheumatic diseases

Zhang

Curtis²

2014

Current Opinion in Rheumatology

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Linking Birth Certificates with Medicaid Data To Enhance Population Health Assessment

Cited by 19 publications

References 7 publications

Investigating linkage rates among probabilistically linked birth and hospitalization records

Investigating linkage rates among probabilistically linked birth and hospitalization records

Data Linkage: A powerful research tool with potential problems

Considerations in using registry and health plan data for studying pregnancy in rheumatic diseases

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