New options for child health surveillance by state health departments

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Child Health Surveillance

Background:

• Historically, a lack of comprehensive child health surveillance instruments hindered state health departments.
• Recent advancements have led to the development of novel surveillance tools for children aged 1-14 years.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review and compare four distinct child health surveillance instruments developed by state health departments.
• To evaluate the methodologies, costs, and data quality of different surveillance approaches.

Main Methods:

• Review of four state-developed child health surveys: a phone-based Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) follow-back survey (Colorado), a Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)-based re-interview survey (Rhode Island), and two school-based surveys (Maine and Oregon).
• Analysis of survey costs, target age groups, logistical complexity, and data generalizability.

Main Results:

• The PRAMS-based survey was moderately expensive but limited to 2-year-olds.
• The phone-based BRFSS survey was the most expensive, covering children aged 1-14 years.
• School-based surveys presented moderate costs and logistical challenges, yielding less robust generalizable data.

Conclusions:

• Various state-level child health surveillance instruments are emerging, offering different trade-offs in cost, scope, and data quality.
• The choice of surveillance instrument depends on specific public health objectives, resource availability, and desired population coverage.
• Further research is needed to optimize methods for robust and generalizable child health surveillance data collection.