Guidelines For Conducting Birth Defects Surveillance PDF Download

"In January of 1999, the National Birth Defects Prevention Network (NBDPN) established a Surveillance Guidelines and Standards Committee (SGSC) in order to develop and promote the use of standards and guidelines for birth defects surveillance programs in the United States. This set of guidelines is designed to serve as an important first step in the documentation of this process and as the vehicle for dissemination of the committee's findings. The Guidelines for Conducting Birth Defects Surveillance (henceforth referred to as The Surveillance Guidelines) were developed with three major long-term objectives in mind: To improve the quality of state birth defects surveillance data, including accuracy, comparability, completeness, and timeliness; To enhance the utility of state birth defects surveillance data for research on the distribution and etiology of birth defects; To encourage and promote the use of state birth defects surveillance data for the purposes of linking affected children with services and evaluation of those services. The technical guidelines that make up this document provide a way of improving the quality of birth defects surveillance data, which in turn enhances their use in support of the latter two objectives. Fundamental to quality is ensuring that procedures for all aspects of data definition, collection, management, and analysis are established and followed. Because state-based surveillance systems operate with different objectives and data needs, it is clear that, with respect to procedures and standards, 'one size does not fit all.' It is also clear, however, that common guidelines can provide a basis for the development of system-specific operating procedures and supporting manuals."--Page i.