EVALUATION OF THE INFORMATION-SYSTEM ON L IVE-BIRTHS AND OF THE USE OF ITS DATA IN EPIDEMIOLOGY AND HEALTH-STATISTICS

The Brazilian Ministry of Health implemented, in 1990, a System of Inf ormation of Live Births (SINASC) which introduced a Birth Certificate with a view to obtaining the total number of these events and their di stribution according to epidemiological, demographic and clinical char acteristics. It was decided to evaluate the System according to its co verage and the quality of information obtained, two years after its in itial implementation. The population of this study consists of 15,142 hospital live births which occurred in rive cities of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1992. Birth Certificates and the corresponding mate rnal and child hospital records were examined visually with a view to checking data recorded on the Birth Certificate. It was seen that the system achieved a high degree of completeness (99.5%) and obtained a v ery accurate report for most of the items, though rather poor reportin g for Apgar Score, length of gestation, mother's schooling, parity and father's name. This study allows suggestions to be made for the refor mulation of some items and regarding the necessity for retraining the hospital personnel involved in the filling in of the certificates. Ove rall this study confirms that the Birth Certificate data are adequate for a valid analysis of aspects of maternal and child health research. The data showed high percentages of adolescent mothers (17.5%) and de liveries by cesarian section (48.4%). The percentage of low birth weig ht was 8.5%.