Abstract
ObjectiveLinkage 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 SettingRetrospective 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.ResultsOf 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 differ between mother/baby records (admission dates, ethnicity, 3/4-character postcode district) or that include missing values (delivery variables). The false-match rate was estimated at 0.15% using synthetic data. Data quality improved over time: for 2001/02, 91% of baby records were linked (holding the estimated false-match rate at 0.15%). The linked cohort was representative of national distributions of gender, gestation, birth weight and maternal age, and captured approximately 97% of births in England.ConclusionProbabilistic linkage of maternal and baby healthcare characteristics offers an efficient way to enrich maternity data, improve data quality, and create longitudinal cohorts for research and service evaluation. This approach could be extended to linkage of other datasets that have non-disclosive characteristics in common.
Highlights
Linkage of administrative or electronic health records for mothers and babies has the potential to provide a population-level resource to support research and service evaluation
A further 380,164 (56%) records linked using probabilistic methods incorporating additional variables that could differ between mother/baby records or that include missing values
Linkage of primary care electronic health records for mothers and babies has been attempted for small populations in England [5, 6] and linkage of prospective maternity and children’s health services datasets on a larger scale is being developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).[7]
Summary
Linkage of administrative or electronic health records for mothers and babies has the potential to provide a population-level resource to support research and service evaluation Such linked data are increasingly used in populations around the world, including Scotland, Canada, Australia, the US and the Netherlands amongst others.[1,2,3,4] Linkage of primary care electronic health records for mothers and babies has been attempted for small populations in England [5, 6] and linkage of prospective maternity and children’s health services datasets on a larger scale is being developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC).[7] routine linkage of maternal and baby records in existing administrative hospital data does not currently exist in England. Linked data on a population-level could be used instead for service evaluation and to answer a range of research questions relating to the relationship between pre- and postnatal maternal riskfactors, adverse birth outcomes and healthcare use throughout the course of childhood.[15]
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