Abstract
Ohio birth records and death records from Ohio Vital Statistics were used to examine deaths within Ohio. Records were linked using birth certificate numbers. Due to data availability and the scope of the original evaluation these analyses were completed for, only data for years 2008-2015 are used from these Ohio datasets. National data for all states and Washington DC from 2007 to 2017 were acquired from the CDC Wonder database. Variables used included number of live births, number of infant deaths, and gestational age at birth. Descriptive statistics including counts, percentages, birth rates, and infant mortality rates were calculated.
Highlights
The infant mortality rate of a state or country is used a measure of the overall health of that region [1]
Some European countries require a minimum gestational age of 22 weeks or a birth weight threshold of 500 g to register a live birth, while the United States and Canada register higher numbers of infants weighing less than 500 g; this results in higher reported infant mortality rates [2]
Ohio-specific data show that pre-viable births have a large impact of the infant mortality rate
Summary
The infant mortality rate of a state or country is used a measure of the overall health of that region [1]. Comparisons between and even within states in the United States suffer from similar difficulties; the number of live births along with the number of deaths of pre-viable infants differ due to regional reporting differences [4]. When these data are used as the basis for policy making, they could potentially result in the mistargeting of resources from states with the greatest need to states whose levels of need may be overinflated based on an artifact of the reporting standard
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