KEYWORDS:
Registry, community-based organizations, outreach and tracking

BACKGROUND:
Assessing the impact of immunization outreach by community-based organizations on vaccination coverage is challenging. Immunization registries offer this capability, but only if the children tracked are included in the registry.

OBJECTIVE(S):
Assess the inclusiveness of a network immunization registry for tracking of children enrolled in community immunization promotion programs.

METHOD(S):
In 2000, a coalition of 14 community-based organizations in Northern Manhattan, New York, launched a program to raise immunization coverage rates in this low-income community. By Oct 2001, 428 parents of children <5 consented to participate in the program. The child’s name, birthdate and gender are used to link children to registry records. The year-old, web-based registry serves a network of hospital-affiliated practices. We analyzed match rate of children tracked who were in the registry, by gender and age (<12, 12-23, 24-35, 36+ months).

RESULT(S):
Subjects were distributed evenly by age and gender. 45% were included in the registry. Of these, 46% matched exactly using automated matching procedures with name, birthdate, and gender. 33% were probable matches, based on manual identification of spelling discrepancies in the child’s name and matching birthdate within 4 days. Another 21% were possible matches, based on manual identification of similar but not exact data (match of uncommon first or last name and matched birthdate). The match rate did not vary by age (X2=0.46,df=2,p=0.80), but by gender, with girls more likely to have a match (X2=3.2,df=1,p=0.08).

CONCLUSIONS(S):
Registries can be used to assist community outreach workers in tracking immunization outcomes, but accurate, detailed information on the child’s name is needed to link to the registry. Children without registry records should have records generated at enrollment.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Techniques for making registries useful to community groups