Case Study: Saving for College Can Start with a Child’s Birth Certificate
Daphna Gluck
Director of Program Evaluation, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the Treasurer and Receiver General, Office of Economic Empowerment
Saving for college is not often on the mind of a new parent, holding their newborn for the first time. But when that parent fills out the hospital forms to obtain the baby’s birth certificate, they will see a question about a Massachusetts program called BabySteps. Checking the box to enroll in BabySteps means that a free $50 deposit will be made into their child’s savings account. Every child who is a resident is eligible for this $50 deposit within one year of their birth or adoption.
Daphna Gluck, Director of Program Evaluation in the Office of the Treasurer, helps manage the savings plan program, and she relies heavily on the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics to track progress and help as many families as possible to jump-start saving for their children’s future education or vocational training.
The Registry collects and manages millions of residents’ vital records, including births in Massachusetts by town, zip code and by race. Daphna reviews weekly and monthly reports of people who checked the BabySteps box on the hospital’s parent form and the demographic information they provided.
“Annual birth data from the Registry is instrumental in helping us evaluate the program year to year, and more importantly, geographically,” says Daphna. “Having birth data by zip code or town helps us assess how to increase uptake in communities with low- to-moderate income, and communities of color. We want to make sure every new parent is enrolling in this program.”
In fact, state data on the disparity in uptake in lower income zip codes compared to higher income zip codes led to BabySteps getting $500,000 from the Legislature to focus on lower income communities. These funds, matched with a private donation, are helping to boost parent participation in those low-income communities.
She says the particular data she gets from the Registry is critical.
“Our collaboration with the Registry, both in adding the BabySteps question to the parent worksheet, and in providing the records in a timely manner, is a crucial part of informing families about this savings program.”
Children with college savings are more than 30 percent more likely to plan on attending college than children without college savings, and thanks to the state’s Registry of Vital Records, the BabySteps program gets them started as early as possible.
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Case Study: Saving for College Can Start with a Child’s Birth Certificate
Case Study: Vital Records Data Guides Action to Reduce Overdose Deaths
Peter Balvanz
Associate Director of Informatics, HEALing Communities Study, Boston Medical Center
The Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics collects and manages millions of vital records, keeping track of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and much more for residents of theCommonwealth. Peter Balvanz of Boston Medical Center is especially interested in the death records, specifically deaths due to drug overdose.
Peter works with Community Data Managers across Massachusetts as part of the HEALing Communities Study to share data and help communities understand and address fatal overdoses. His group has worked with the Registry since 2019, using data to create a dashboard of overdose fatalities in each participating community.
The study calls it data-driven decision-making and it’s already showing positive results.
For example, when his team looked at race and ethnicity data regarding drug overdoses in Springfield, Becky Smeltzer, the community’s Community Data Manager realized that deaths among Black, Non-Hispanic individuals in the city had recently doubled. The discovery led to a coalition discussion resulting in three interventions specifically for this population at increased risk.
His team also looked at deaths by occupation and what they learned was striking. In participating communities, opioid overdose deaths were concentrated among certain occupations, including those in the fishing, construction, and hospitality industries. He says the occupation data was eye-opening.
“When we first saw the many different demographic data points, we were grateful to be able to use these to start conversations with community coalitions,” says Peter. “The state’s data gave us what we needed to look at overdoses by age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, and location. Knowing who is most affected has enabled communities to devise targeted remedies to try.”
The Registry also tracks where someone died – at their home, outside, or at another residence, for instance. Tufts University, a HEALing Communities Study partner, uses that data to produce maps to help identify patterns and pinpoint areas of concern. In areas with a concentration of opioid deaths, communities may decide to increase distribution of the overdose-reversal drug Naloxone.
“Communities have only a certain amount of money to address this heartbreaking problem, so data helps to guide action,” says Peter. “If you see a high number of deaths near the river, for example, then you can ask community members why, and determine what to do about it. Engaging with the data is critical.”
The state’s data is guiding action to reduce lives lost to overdose. “When we talk about the data or review a map of fatalities, we are mindful that every point represents a person we lost to opioids, and that person was someone’s relative or friend,” Peter says. “We never forget that.”
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Case Study: Vital Records Data Guides Action to Reduce Overdose Deaths
Case Study: Vital Records to Help Secure the Rights of Every Child
Peter Rencsko
Counsel for the Office of Chief Legal Counsel, Child Support Enforcement Division, Massachusetts Department of Revenue
Peter Rencsko is an attorney in the state’s Department of Revenue, the single state agency in the Commonwealth tasked with establishing, modifying and enforcing court orders of child support. For DOR to establish and enforce court ordered child support, the agency needs to have access to timely and accurate birth records and the names of both parents.
In Massachusetts, the state’s Registry of Vital Records and Statistics collects and manages millions of vital records, including the birth record of every child born in the Commonwealth. The vast majority of birth records for children born to unmarried parents includes both parents who have voluntarily acknowledged the child on a form completed at the hospital when the child is born.
For other children, it takes a court order to legally recognize parentage.
“It is critically important to have accurate, reliable tracking of all the births in the state, as well as the acknowledgement of parenthood,” says Peter. “These records benefit families who have the documentation they need to secure the rights of their child. And these records benefit the child, setting them up for life with two legal parents.”
Determining parentage may require genetic testing to identify the father and filing a complaint in the Probate and Family Court as part of a case with the Department of Revenue. For all of these cases, the department relies on the Registry’s comprehensive birth records and parentage information.
Massachusetts’ success in establishing a child’s parentage is also tracked by the federal government. If the success rate falls below 90 percent for two consecutive years, the federal government would reduce the amount of federal block grant funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The child support program could also lose potential incentive funds.
Peter has nothing but praise for the helpful relationship between the Department of Revenue and the Registry. The frequently work together to iron out issues that arise during the process of certifying parentage and, ultimately, the rights and protections for each child born in the Commonwealth.
“It’s about teamwork,” he says. “Our work together on the parentage program is vital to establishing the links that end up supporting these children throughout their lives.”
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Case Study: Vital Records to Help Secure the Rights of Every Child
Case Study: Using Vital Records to Improve Maternal and Child Health
Hafsatou Fifi Diop, MD, MPH
Director, Division of Maternal and Child Health Research and Analysis, Bureau of Family Health and Nutrition, MA Department of Public Health
Sarah L. Stone, PhD, MPH
Director, Office of Data Translation and Deputy Director, Division of Maternal and Child Health Research and Analysis, Bureau of Family Health and Nutrition
Birth certificates collected and managed by the Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records and Statistics not only provide an official record of a child’s birth, they are also enormously important for the purpose of public health research and analysis.
A Massachusetts birth certificate contains over 700 data points including mother’s age, body mass index (BMI), and health conditions like diabetes. Birth records also include type of delivery (such as a C-section), any delivery complications, race/ethnicity, parent education level, and more. They are a rich source of information, widely used to assess newborn and maternal health outcomes.
Fifi Diop and Sarah Stone use these data every day as part of their work in the Bureau of Family Health and Nutrition at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
“Our division at DPH is a data-hub,” says Fifi. “And birth and death records are the core of our work to examine maternal and child health. We use the data to conduct all kinds of analyses critical to helping track the health of mothers and children across the Commonwealth.”
One of the most robust ways the records are used is to create the Pregnancy to Early Life Longitudinal, or PELL, data system which links each infant’s birth certificate to the mother’s hospital discharge record, enabling over time, a better understanding of their health outcomes.
Birth records are also used for PRAMS, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that surveys new parents about prenatal care, life stressors, effects of racism, social supports, father’s support, and smoking and substance use. Survey answers inform a range of state maternal and child health programs and help inform policy.
“We use the data in all kinds of ways, including to help inform health system improvements,” says Sarah. “For example, birth data are used to help us monitor communities with higher teen birth rates, and the findings helped pregnancy prevention programs secure funding.”
DPH also uses birth records to assess enrollment of infants in Early Intervention programs and participation in the state’s WIC program. Infant death records have been used to produce informational packets for communities with higher rates of infant death and notify local health care providers.
“DPH has a long history of working with the Registry to help improve health outcomes for families,” says Fifi. “We value our partnership tremendously and consider it the keystone for our work to improve maternal and child health.”
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Case Study: Using Vital Records to Improve Maternal and Child Health