Institute for Womens' Health, UCL, 74 Huntley Street, London, UK.
Homerton Hospital, London, UK.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2016 May 20;16:57. doi: 10.1186/s12874-016-0152-0.
A 44 % increase was observed in admissions to neonatal intensive care of babies born ≤26 weeks completed gestational age in England between 1995 and 2006. Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) may provide supplementary information to investigate this. The methods and results of a probabilistic data linkage exercise are reported.
Two data sets were linked for each year (1995 and 2006) using 3 different algorithms (Fellegi and Sunter, Contiero and estimation-maximisation).
In 1995, linkage was performed between 668 EPICure and 486,705 HES records; 1,820 linked pairs were identified of which 422 (63.17 %) were confirmed. In 2006, from 2,750 EPICure and 631,401 HES records, 8,913 linked pairs were identified with 1,662 (60.40 %) confirmed as true. Reported births in HES at <26 weeks gestation increased 37.0 % from 867 to 1188.
Results support the EPICure findings that there was an increase in the birth rate for extremely premature babies between 1995 and 2006. There were insufficient data available for detailed investigation. Routine data sources may not be suitable for investigations at the margins of viability.
1995 年至 2006 年间，英国 ≤26 周完成妊娠的新生儿重症监护病房入院人数增加了 44%。医院住院统计数据（HES）可能提供了补充信息以进行调查。报告了一项概率数据链接练习的方法和结果。
每年（1995 年和 2006 年）使用 3 种不同的算法（Fellegi 和 Sunter、Contiero 和估计最大化）对两个数据集进行链接。
1995 年，在 668 份 EPICure 和 486,705 份 HES 记录之间进行了链接；共确定了 1,820 对链接，其中 422 对（63.17%）得到确认。2006 年，从 2,750 份 EPICure 和 631,401 份 HES 记录中，共确定了 8,913 对链接，其中 1,662 对（60.40%）被确认为真实。HES 中<26 周妊娠的报告出生率从 867 例增加到 1188 例，增长了 37.0%。
结果支持 EPICure 的发现，即在 1995 年至 2006 年间，极早产儿的出生率有所增加。可用的详细调查数据不足。常规数据源可能不适合在生存边缘进行调查。
