The Use of Birth Records to Study Child Abuse and Neglect

Vital birth records are underutilized as a data resource for child maltreatment researchers. Birth records have a number of characteristics that facilitate their use as a possible population base (or population spine) for establishing record linkages across various public service systems. Among these characteristics, birth records are universally collected; nationally standardized; and contain a number of valuable data elements including demographic, health, financial, and service information for a child and up to two parents. This chapter presents a number of innovative research activities that are possible through integration of birth records with child welfare administrative data sources. These include calculating cumulative rates of child protective services involvement, using integrated files to conduct prospective analyses of rare events such as child maltreatment fatalities, facilitating other types of health surveillance through linkages to broader health care programs and systems, and documenting intergenerational maltreatment and patterns of child protection system involvement.