ABSTRACT
This article presents data on blood-lead testing in Minnesota children from 1999 through 2003. The number of Minnesota children younger than 6 years of age who were tested for blood lead increased from approximately 38,000 in 1999 to 61,000 in 2003. The rate of blood-lead testing in 9- to 30-month-old children enrolled in Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare, the state's Medicaid programs for children, increased from 17% to 29% between 1999 and 2003. The rate of elevated blood-lead levels (10 microg/dL or greater) in all tested children declined from 6% in 1999 to 2.7% in 2003. However, the rate of elevated blood-lead levels in children enrolled in the 2 public programs in 2003 (3.4%) was 2-fold higher than that in children who were not on Medical Assistance or MinnesotaCare (1.5%). The percentage of all children with elevated blood-lead levels who were retested within 3 months increased from 39% in 1999 to 50% in 2003.
Subject(s)
Lead Poisoning/epidemiology , Lead/blood , Mass Screening/statistics & numerical data , Medicaid/statistics & numerical data , Child , Child, Preschool , Cross-Sectional Studies , Female , Humans , Incidence , Infant , Lead Poisoning/prevention & control , Male , Minnesota , Reference ValuesABSTRACT
This study linked birth certificates with Minnesota Medicaid deliveries in order to identify Medicaid births. This article describes the link between methodology and results. Medicaid claims from 1997 were used to identify women with a delivery code. Identifiers for these women were linked to birth certificate files, with a match rate of 93.2 percent. Women's match status did not differ by maternal age. Women in some border counties matched at much lower rates than the rest of the population. The methodology was effective in linking Medicaid and birth certificate data and will be implemented as a data linkage protocol for Minnesota.
