Objective: Improving the well-being of mothers, infants, and children is an important public health goal across the world. Their well-being determines the health of the next generation and can help predict future public health challenges for families, communities, and the health care system. The Global Research in Pediatric project funded by the European Commission, the International Society for Pharmaco-epidemiology and the FDA demonstrated that there is an urgent need to build research capacity to better exploit the evidence that is being compiled in real life. Especially in these vulnerable groups, which are often excluded from clinical trials and where most drugs are used off label, data generated in routine health care should be utilized. Data should be made actionable and provide evidence that can support mothers, parents and health care providers and public health officials to make better informed decisions. However, there are several methodological challenges that are related to - Linkage of mothers and their children in health care databases - Estimation of gestational age and pregnancy in health care databases - Long-term follow-up of children - Pregnancy and neonatal outcome phenotyping in health care databases - Exposure & confounder patterns in children: dose and duration of drugs and co-morbidities

The OHDSI maternal child health group aims to specifically address: - Methods & validation for mother-child linkage in health care databases - Designs, methods and implementation of multisite drug utilization studies and vaccine coverage in mothers and children - Estimation of recurrent/chronic disease incidence and prevalence in children and mothers using health care databases - Methods and designs for maternal drug/vaccine exposure and pediatric drug/vaccine exposure outcome studies (safety & effectiveness)

Project Lead: Miriam Sturkenboom (Utrecht University Medical Center), Jamie Weaver (J&J)

Start Date: Dec 1st 2017

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