The purpose of the Birth Query Tool (BQT) is to support the information needs of local health departments, educators, and community agencies in order to improve services, evaluate programs, and monitor birth related health indicators.

The birth data derives from information recorded on birth certificates.  Certificates are submitted under a NH law that requires all births be filed with the Secretary of State, Division of Vital Records.  NH law gives DHHS access to the data and the responsibility to disseminate analyses of the data.  

The BQT analyzes health data at the city/town level or by any selected group of cities/towns.  Town is the smallest unit of analysis.  When the number of values a query returns is fewer than ten, the results are suppressed to protect confidentiality.  The BQT allows users to retrieve birth data for a selected city/town (reflecting mother's residence) by maternal age and birth year.  All queries are based on the number of births, not pregnancies.  Data is available for births from 1997 to 2003.  This effort is the first phase of a larger community health data project known as HealthWRQS (Health Web Reporting & Query System).

Specifically, the BQT provides data about:

• number of births,
• babies born with low (and very low) birth weights,
• births where the mother initiated prenatal care in the 1st trimester,
• births where the mother had no prenatal care or initiated care in the 3rd trimester,
• births where the mother was unmarried,
• births where the mother reported using tobacco during pregnancy,
• births where the mother reported < 12 years of education, and
• births where Medicaid paid for the delivery.