Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records
Introduction By linking datasets, electronic records can be used to build large birth-cohorts, enabling researchers to cost-effectively answer questions relevant to populations over the life-course. Currently, around 5.8 million Palestinian refugees live in five settings: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, We...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Swansea University
2023-10-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Population Data Science |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ijpds.org/article/view/2156 |
| _version_ | 1797412472274026496 |
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| author | Zeina Jamaluddine Akihiro Seita Ghada Ballout Husam Al-Fudoli Gloria Paolucci Shatha Albaik Rami Ibrahim Miho Sato Hala Ghattas Oona Campbell |
| author_facet | Zeina Jamaluddine Akihiro Seita Ghada Ballout Husam Al-Fudoli Gloria Paolucci Shatha Albaik Rami Ibrahim Miho Sato Hala Ghattas Oona Campbell |
| author_sort | Zeina Jamaluddine |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Introduction
By linking datasets, electronic records can be used to build large birth-cohorts, enabling researchers to cost-effectively answer questions relevant to populations over the life-course. Currently, around 5.8 million Palestinian refugees live in five settings: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides them with free primary health and elementary-school services. It maintains electronic records to do so.
We aimed to establish a birth cohort of Palestinian refugees born between 1st January 2010 and 31st December 2020 living in five settings by linking mother obstetric records with child health and education records and to describe some of the cohort characteristics. In future, we plan to assess effects of size-at-birth on growth, health and educational attainment, among other questions.
Methods
We extracted all available data from 140 health centres and 702 schools across five settings, i.e. all UNRWA service users. Creating the cohort involved examining IDs and other data, preparing data, de-duplicating records, and identifying live-births, linking the mothers' and children's data using different deterministic linking algorithms, and understanding reasons for non-linkage.
Results
We established a birth cohort of Palestinian refugees using electronic records of 972,743 live births. We found high levels of linkage to health records overall (83%), which improved over time (from 73% to 86%), and variations in linkage rates by setting: these averaged 93% in Gaza, 89% in Lebanon, 75% in Jordan, 73% in West Bank and 68% in Syria. Of the 423,580 children age-eligible to go to school, 47% went to UNRWA schools and comprised of 197,479 children with both health and education records, and 2,447 children with only education records. In addition to year and setting, other factors associated with non-linkage included mortality and having a non-refugee mother. Misclassification errors were minimal.
Conclusion
This linked open birth-cohort is unique for refugees and the Arab region and forms the basis for many future studies, including to elucidate pathways for improved health and education in this vulnerable, understudied population. Our characterization of the cohort leads us to recommend using different sub-sets of the cohort depending on the research question and analytic purposes.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T05:03:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-f100e852383f410ca979601ea2c1949e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2399-4908 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T05:03:12Z |
| publishDate | 2023-10-01 |
| publisher | Swansea University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Journal of Population Data Science |
| spelling | doaj.art-f100e852383f410ca979601ea2c1949e2023-12-03T12:57:58ZengSwansea UniversityInternational Journal of Population Data Science2399-49082023-10-018110.23889/ijpds.v8i1.2156Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education recordsZeina Jamaluddine0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2074-9329Akihiro Seita1Ghada Ballout2Husam Al-Fudoli3Gloria Paolucci4Shatha Albaik5Rami Ibrahim6Miho Sato7Hala Ghattas8Oona Campbell9Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom; School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, JapanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanUnited Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA headquarters, Amman, JordanSchool of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, JapanDepartment of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA; Center for Research on Population and Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut LebanonFaculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom Introduction By linking datasets, electronic records can be used to build large birth-cohorts, enabling researchers to cost-effectively answer questions relevant to populations over the life-course. Currently, around 5.8 million Palestinian refugees live in five settings: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, and Gaza Strip. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides them with free primary health and elementary-school services. It maintains electronic records to do so. We aimed to establish a birth cohort of Palestinian refugees born between 1st January 2010 and 31st December 2020 living in five settings by linking mother obstetric records with child health and education records and to describe some of the cohort characteristics. In future, we plan to assess effects of size-at-birth on growth, health and educational attainment, among other questions. Methods We extracted all available data from 140 health centres and 702 schools across five settings, i.e. all UNRWA service users. Creating the cohort involved examining IDs and other data, preparing data, de-duplicating records, and identifying live-births, linking the mothers' and children's data using different deterministic linking algorithms, and understanding reasons for non-linkage. Results We established a birth cohort of Palestinian refugees using electronic records of 972,743 live births. We found high levels of linkage to health records overall (83%), which improved over time (from 73% to 86%), and variations in linkage rates by setting: these averaged 93% in Gaza, 89% in Lebanon, 75% in Jordan, 73% in West Bank and 68% in Syria. Of the 423,580 children age-eligible to go to school, 47% went to UNRWA schools and comprised of 197,479 children with both health and education records, and 2,447 children with only education records. In addition to year and setting, other factors associated with non-linkage included mortality and having a non-refugee mother. Misclassification errors were minimal. Conclusion This linked open birth-cohort is unique for refugees and the Arab region and forms the basis for many future studies, including to elucidate pathways for improved health and education in this vulnerable, understudied population. Our characterization of the cohort leads us to recommend using different sub-sets of the cohort depending on the research question and analytic purposes. https://ijpds.org/article/view/2156Electronic recordsData linkageMother childPalestinian refugeeshealth recordseducation records |
| spellingShingle | Zeina Jamaluddine Akihiro Seita Ghada Ballout Husam Al-Fudoli Gloria Paolucci Shatha Albaik Rami Ibrahim Miho Sato Hala Ghattas Oona Campbell Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records International Journal of Population Data Science Electronic records Data linkage Mother child Palestinian refugees health records education records |
| title | Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| title_full | Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| title_fullStr | Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| title_full_unstemmed | Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| title_short | Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| title_sort | establishment of a birth to education cohort of 1 million palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records |
| topic | Electronic records Data linkage Mother child Palestinian refugees health records education records |
| url | https://ijpds.org/article/view/2156 |
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