Birth Defects Dataset Details
To contact the board with suggestions or comments, you may send an email to the following address: cohid@state.co.us
Source of Birth Defect Data
Colorado Responds to Children with Special Needs (CRCSN) is a statewide public health program for monitoring and preventing birth defects and developmental disabilities. The purposes of CRCSN are
- to develop, maintain, and expand a statewide computerized database of young children with birth defects, developmental disabilities, or risk factors for developmental delay
- to perform epidemiologic surveillance (monitoring to learn more about the occurrence of birth defects and developmental disabilities) and investigations
- to prevent birth defects and disabilities associated with birth defects and to help connect children and families with early intervention services in their communities
- to provide accurate, aggregate statistics and an unduplicated count of children with special needs to other programs and agencies for program planning
- to provide statistics to other researchers studying causes and risks, the ultimate goal being to prevent future birth defects and developmental disabilities
The data available at this site are subject to change over time as new data sources are added, further diagnostic reports are received for the time period of concern, or as validation studies conducted by CRCSN are completed. The data are updated on a quarterly basis.
To be included in CRCSN a child must be a Colorado resident diagnosed prenatally to three years of age with an eligible condition. Eligible conditions include medical conditions, medical risk factors for delay, or one of two environmental (maternal) risk factors for delay. Children meeting these criteria are identified from computer linkage of information from hospitals, vital records (birth, death and fetal death certificates), the Newborn Genetics Screening Program, the Newborn Hearing Screening Program, laboratories, physicians, and genetic, developmental and other specialty clinics. Currently only Colorado resident live born birth defect data for selected eligible conditions are available at this site. In most cases (~97%), a mother's state of residence is determined by matching a diagnostic report to the child's birth certificate. In rare instances, a match back to a birth certificate cannot be made. For these cases, Colorado residency is assumed if the child's first reported diagnosis was within 5 days of the date of birth. For this reason, only count data are provided when 'unknown' is a selection criteria in an interactive data query.
About 7,000 children each year are identified because
they meet CRCSN eligibility criteria. About 4% of all births in Colorado
have major congenital anomalies. CRCSN collaborates with local agencies
to connect families with services and resources in their own communities.
Without such assistance, most families would have to search out these
services on a hit or miss basis and may have difficulty finding the right
fit. The local agencies include public health departments, community nursing
services and early intervention programs. The confidentiality of information
collected for CRCSN is protected by Colorado state law, Board of Health
regulations and strict procedural safeguards.
Clarification on Birth Defect Data
Race/EthnicityRace and ethnic backgrounds are determined by responses to race and Hispanic origin questions on the birth certificate. The use of race/ethnicity of the mother for birth defect data, rather than race/ethnicity of the child, is the standard classification.
Age of Mother
Age of mother in years at the time of birth as self reported on the birth certificate.
Year of Event
The calendar year in which the event occurred
County of Residence
Mother's Colorado county of residence at the time of birth.
Diagnostic Category
Children born with multiple conditions could be included in counts in several different queries; therefore, summing over queries may not add to a correct total count.
For the list of diagnostic categories and their ICD-9 codes please see: www.cdphe.state.co./dc/crcsn/crcsnicd9.pdf
Rate per 10,000 Live Births and Confidence Limits
The live birth prevalence rates are calculated by counting the number of births with the specified diagnostic category, dividing by the total number of births in the specified group of interest and multiplying by 10,000. Confidence limits presented here are 95% exact binomial confidence limits. This means that the true rate of a defect should be contained within these limits 95% of the time that the limits are calculated this way.
How is the privacy of families protected?
The confidentiality of information collected for CRCSN is protected by Colorado state law, Board of Health regulations and strict procedural safeguards.
Release of disease surveillance data to the general public or other agencies of local, state, or federal government through published reports, grant applications, grant progress reports, correspondence, newsletters, oral presentations, public meetings, telephone conversations, press releases, or research projects in which CDPHE is a participant is outlined in the Policy on Release of Disease Surveillance Data available upon request.
More specific inquiries about these data or CRCSN are welcome and can be addressed to: crcsn@state.co.us
| Colorado Responds to Children
with Special Needs Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment 4300 Cherry Creek Drive South DCEED-CRC-A3Denver CO 80246-1530 |
Phone: (303)692-2700 Fax: (303)782-0904 |
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Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
Health Statistics Section
4300 Cherry Creek Drive South
Denver, Colorado 80246-1530