Vital statistics is regarded as one of the important information sources for making policies in most of advanced countries. The vital systems in Korea seems to have virtually no problem in producing vital statistics of people abide by the regulation according to the rules. However, the system is not organized well by lack of cooperation’s among related agencies. It resulted in giving much efforts to verifying or correcting the registration data rather than estimating or analyzing the risks for infant health. Following the rapid economic growth for several decades much more needs for health and welfare increase among people, and it is necessary to establish qualified data sources through the synthesis of related systems.
Infants Birth-and-Death Data Sets(or Linked Data Sets) of linked birth and death certificates for infants born in the United States who died before reaching 1 year of age use many additional variables available from the birth certificate in infant mortality analysis. Analysis of information can provide insight into the major factors influencing low birth weight of newborn babies as well as infant mortality. Linked Data Sets for 1982-88 in California, U.S.A.. was used in this study, and there was a total of 20,108 live births and 82 fetal deaths from Korean-American parents.
1. The rate of low birth weight weighing less than 2,5(X) grams-was 3:89% among all live births, and females to experienced higher low birth weight. rate than did males. The mean birth weight of male was higher(3,394 grams) than that of females(3,280 grams).
2. The infant mortality rate marks 7.1 per 1,000 live births, and prenatal mortality rate and neonatal mortality rate were 6.0 and 4.6 respectively. Alpha-index(1.66 in male and 1.41 in female) showed that there were more infant deaths in post-neonatal period than in neonatal period.
36.2% of infantile deaths were from ´certain conditions originating in the prenatal period´ and 31.9% of them were from ´congenital anomalies´, which were the most common causes of death.
3. Infants who have their weights less than 2,500 grams had higher risk on infantile death than normal weight infants(relative risk =24.35), especially it gave much higher relative risks in neonatal period(24.35) than in post-neonatal period(3.80).
4. Modeling the ordinary least square regression on birth weight(in grams) six covariates such as gestational period, infant sex, birth age of mother, labor and delivery complications have R2 of 0.1348(P<0.05).
In the model representing the risk for low birth weight(less than 2,5(X) grams or not) estimated by logistic regression, gestational age had the strongest net impact on the risk for low birth weight(odds ratio=21.73). The other covariates were pregnancy complications, labor and delivery complications, month when prenatal care began, infantile sex and birth order(P5. Compared with infants of normal birth weight, infants of low birth weight were at much greater risk of mortality estimated by logistic regression. It had the strongest net impact on the risk for infantile death(ods ratio = 11.36). The other covariates were gestational age, labor and delivery complications and infantile sex(P
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