Linking Data for Mothers and Babies in De-Identified Electronic Health Data.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Linkage of longitudinal administrative data for mothers and babies supports research and service evaluation in several populations around the world. We established a linked mother-baby cohort using pseudonymised, population-level data for England.

Design and setting

Retrospective linkage study using electronic hospital records of mothers and babies admitted to NHS hospitals in England, captured in Hospital Episode Statistics between April 2001 and March 2013.

Results

Of 672,955 baby records in 2012/13, 280,470 (42%) linked deterministically to a maternal record using hospital, GP practice, maternal age, birthweight, gestation, birth order and sex. A further 380,164 (56%) records linked using probabilistic methods incorporating additional variables that could

SUBMITTER: Harron K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5072610 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature