Improving Cohort-Hospital Matching Accuracy through Standardization and Validation of Participant Identifiable Information

Abstract

Linking very large, consented birth cohorts to birthing hospitals clinical data could elucidate the lifecourse outcomes of health care and exposures during the pregnancy, birth and newborn periods. Unfortunately, cohort personally identifiable information (PII) often does not include unique identifier numbers, presenting matching challenges. To develop optimized cohort matching to birthing hospital clinical records, this pilot drew on a one-year (December 2020–December 2021) cohort for a single Australian birthing hospital participating in the whole-of-state Generation Victoria (GenV) study. For 1819 consented mother-baby pairs and 58 additional babies (whose mothers were not themselves part..