Survey
description
The 1991 Longitudinal Follow-up (LF) to the 1988 National Maternal and Infant Health Survey
(NMIHS) reinterviewed women who were respondents to the NMIHS to provide information on a
number of areas related to child health and development. The 1991 LF consists of three
parts: the live birth survey, the child medical provider survey, and the fetal and infant
death survey. The 1991 LF live birth survey is a nationally representative study that
examines the children of women initially interviewed for the live birth cohort of the1988 NMIHS. Its primary purpose is to obtain data on national health issues affecting children,
such as child development, effects of low-birthweight, child injury, child care, pediatric
care, health insurance coverage, child safety, and acute and chronic illnesses. The
response rate for this survey is 89 percent. There were 8,285 completed interviews.
For the
child medical provider survey, each woman was asked to provide the names of all medical
providers and hospitals where her child was diagnosed, treated, and/or admitted. Each
health care provider was asked to supply information on its organization, the child's
health status and history, and information on each visit or hospitalization. The response
rate for this survey was 89 percent for hospitals and 74 percent for pediatric care
providers. Information was obtained from more than 9,000 pediatric care providers and more
than 3,500 hospitals.
The fetal and infant death survey was
composed of a subsample of women from the fetal death and infant death cohorts in the 1988
NMIHS. A sample of 1,000 women each from the fetal death and infant death cohorts were
contacted for this survey. Its purpose was to gather information about the health of the
respondents and any pregnancies experienced since their loss in 1988. The response rate
for this survey was 82 percent.
To protect
confidentiality of respondents, the 1991 LF can
only be linked with the 1988 NMIHS
in the NCHS Research Data
Center.
Data file
description
The LF consists of three public-use files. The first file contains information on the live
birth survey; the second file contains information on the medical provider survey; and the
third file contains information on the fetal and infant death survey.
NOTES:ICD-9-CM is International Classification
of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification. HIV is human immunodeficiency virus.
TB is tuberculosis. Hgb is hemoglobin. Hct is hematocrit.
Data file
technical characteristics
The following list describes specific characteristics of each file. The CD-ROM format comes with the Statistical
Export and Tabulation System (SETS)
retrieval software.
CD-ROM.
The data can be linked only in the NCHS Research Data Centerto the 1988 NMIHS to
provide a nationally representative longitudinal data base to cover the first 3 years of a
child's life or, alternatively, to examine the long-term follow-up to the loss of a fetus
or infant.