MMMR-R Birth-Death Linkage

Birth and Death Record Linkage

Birth and Death Record Linkage: BACKGROUND

Birth and death record linkage is an analytical approach that aims to identify pregnancy-related deaths by linking records of births with those of reproductive-age female deaths. Deaths that can be linked to within a prescribed time-period of a birth (or recorded pregnancy) are deemed to be pregnancy-related deaths. These can be further investigated to determine whether they are maternal.

This approach has been applied with historical data by using parish records of baptisms and burials. It has also been used in settings with unique person identification systems such as Finland, and in settings such as the US with good vital registration. Brazil has also experimented with this approach using civil registration and it has been used in Demographic Surveillance System (DSS) sites such as Matlab, Bangladesh.

Advantages:

it uses existing records and overcomes some problems with misclassification of pregnancy-related deaths
it can be easy if records are computerized and identifiers are good

Limitations:

it misses deaths associated with abortions
it may miss deaths associated with stillbirths (if only records of live births exist)
it requires high coverage of births and deaths
if unique identifiers do not exist and matching has to be done based on mother’s name, this may be difficult

Other data requirements:

the need to be able to link birth and death records by date and by either a unique identifier linking the mother with the foetus/infant or by the mother’s name (or soundex of surname, first initial, date of birth, sex, or postcode)

Back to Top

Birth and Death Record Linkage: GUIDELINES

No guidelines for Birth and Death Record Linkage to identify maternal death exist to our knowledge. Existing records of births (including stillbirths), pregnancies (if available) and deaths are obtained from routine Civil Registration sources (or historically using parish records of baptisms and burials) or from Demographic Surveillance Systems.

A general manual on record linkage (aka data integration):

Statistics New Zealand (2006) Data Integration Manual. Wellington: Crown Copyright.

Back to Top

Birth and Death Record Linkage: REFERENCES

Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System. Progress Report 1997-1998. Maternal mortality and morbidity study. Ottawa: Public Health Agency of Canada.

Dye, TD; Gordon, H; Held, B; Tolliver, NJ; Holmes, AP (1992) Retrospective maternal mortality case ascertainment in West Virginia, 1985 to 1989. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology; 167(1): 72-6.

Gissler, M; Hemminki, E; Lonnqvist, J (1996) Suicides after pregnancy in Finland, 1987-94: register linkage study. BMJ, 313: 1431-4.

Jocums, S; Mitchel, EF Jr; Entman, SS; Piper, JM (1995) Monitoring maternal mortality using vital records linkage. American Journal of Preventive Medicine; 11(2): 75-8.

Misclassification of maternal deaths - Washington State. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; October 03, 1986, 35(39);621-3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Georgia, 1990-1992. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; February 10, 1995, 44(05);93-96. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An historical example:

Hammel, EA; Gullickson, A (2004) Kinship structures and survival: Maternal mortality on the Croatian-Bosnian border 1750-1898. Population Studies-A Journal of Demography. 58(2): 145-59.

Back to Top

Birth and Death Record Linkage: ADDITIONAL LITERATURE

Atrash, HK; Ellerbrock, TV; Hogue, CJR; Smith, JC (1989) The need for national pregnancy mortality surveillance. Family Planning Perspectives; 21(1): 25-6

A review of record linkage focusing on infant mortality. Contains useful general information:

Machado, CJ (2004) A literature review of record linkage procedures focusing on infant health outcomes. Cadernos de Saúde Pública; 20(2): 362-71.

Ahmed K. Elmagarmid, Panagiotis G. Ipeirotis, Vassilios S. Verykios (2007) Duplicate record detection: a survey. Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering; 19(1): 1-16

Back to Top

Birth and Death Record Linkage: ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Free probabilistic record linkage programme developed for Cancer Registries, yet helpful for general information. US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Cancer Registries

Parallel Large Scale Techniques for High-Performance Record Linkage. Australian National University

Back to Top

Back to Materials Index Background Guidelines References Additional Literature Additional Resources

Birth and Death Record Linkage

Back to Materials Index
Background
Guidelines
References
Additional Literature
Additional Resources