{"main_topic":"health","sub_topic":"oasis","topic":"birth_outcomes","key":"health/oasis/birth_outcomes","version":"1.0.0","year_min":2000,"year_max":2025,"year_gaps":[],"update_frequency":"annual","detail_levels":["counties","states"],"default_detail":"counties","path_template":"health/birth_outcomes/year={year}/{detail}.parquet","grain":["year","county_fips","tract_geoid","demographic","mother_age","payer","outcome"],"title":"Birth Outcomes (Low Birthweight and Preterm Births)","summary":"Percent of live births that are low birthweight, very low birthweight or preterm, by the mother's race and age and the payer, Georgia and its counties, 2000-2025 (DPH OASIS).","description":"Low birthweight (under 2,500 grams), very low birthweight (under 1,500 grams, a subset of low birthweight) and preterm (under 37 weeks' gestation) births to Georgia-resident mothers, by the mother's county of residence, Georgia and each of its 159 counties, 2000-2025: overall, by the mother's race and ethnicity, by the mother's age and by the payer for the delivery (never crossed), from Georgia DPH's OASIS. Key metric: OASIS's percent of the group's births with the outcome, as a proportion, with the births with the outcome and all births beside it. Georgia 2025: 10.02% of births were low birthweight (12,542 of 125,143); 15.7% for black mothers and 7.0% for white mothers; 12.3% of Medicaid-paid births and 8.6% of privately insured ones. Use it for low birthweight and preterm birth by county, race, mother's age or payer and over time. The births topic counts the same births (its num_births equals this topic's, NULLs included); prenatal care, tobacco use, breastfeeding and infant deaths are other topics.","explorer":true,"search_aliases":{"en":["low birth weight","preterm births","premature babies","preemies","very low birthweight","pregnancy outcomes","maternal health","infant health","medicaid births"],"es":["bajo peso al nacer","nacimientos prematuros","bebés prematuros","bebés pequeños","parto prematuro","resultados del embarazo","salud materna","salud infantil","nacimientos con medicaid"]},"source":"Georgia Department of Public Health, Office of Health Indicators for Planning (OHIP), OASIS Data Table Tool, Births (low and very low birthweight and premature births and their percents; birth certificates)","source_url":"https://oasis.state.ga.us/dtt/birth","endpoint":"/api/v1/health/birth_outcomes","columns":[{"name":"year","type":"integer","role":"year","nullable":false,"label":"Year","short_description":"","description":"Calendar year of birth, 2000-2025.","valid_values":null,"example":2025,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"county_fips","type":"string","role":"fk_county","nullable":true,"label":"County FIPS","short_description":"","description":"5-digit FIPS of the mother's county of residence (FK to the counties dimension); NULL on Georgia's statewide row.","valid_values":null,"example":"13121","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"tract_geoid","type":"string","role":"fk_tract","nullable":true,"label":"Tract GEOID","short_description":"","description":"Always NULL: state and county rows only.","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"demographic","type":"string","role":"fk_demographic","nullable":false,"label":"Demographic","short_description":"","description":"The mother's race and ethnicity: all; hispanic (any race) and non-Hispanic white, black, asian, native_american (American Indian or Alaska Native), pacific_islander (Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander) and multiracial, plus race_unknown (our calculation: all minus those seven; unknown ethnicity, or non-Hispanic of unknown race; counts only, no percent). The race groups' counts add up to all where every group's is published (our masks NULL some: limitations). A race group's row has mother_age and payer = 'all' (never crossed).","valid_values":["all","asian","black","hispanic","multiracial","native_american","pacific_islander","race_unknown","white"],"example":"all","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"mother_age","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"Mother Age","short_description":"Mother's age group at the birth","description":"The mother's age at the birth, OASIS's groups: all, 10_14, 15_17, 18_19, 20_24, 25_29, 30_34, 35_39, 40_44 and 45_55 (to 55 inclusive). The groups' counts add up to all. A mother's age row has demographic and payer = 'all' (never crossed).","valid_values":["10_14","15_17","18_19","20_24","25_29","30_34","35_39","40_44","45_55","all"],"example":"all","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"payer","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"Payer","short_description":"Payer for the delivery (Medicaid, private, ...)","description":"The primary payer for the delivery recorded on the birth certificate (OASIS: the primary entity responsible for payment): all (every one, OASIS's All Payors, the total); medicaid (Medicaid (Title XIX)); medicare (Medicare: people 65 and older, some disabled people under 65, and people with end-stage kidney disease); private_insurance (OASIS: Private Insurance, which includes Blue Cross/Blue Shield, HMO and other managed care, commercial insurance, PPO and POS plans and the State Health Benefit Plan); self_pay (OASIS: Self-Pay: no proof of insurance, patients filing their own claims or paying their own bills, Hill-Burton and charity cases); peachcare (PeachCare for Kids, Georgia's Children's Health Insurance Program, for children through 18 who do not qualify for Medicaid); other (OASIS: All other payors (all other plans)); unknown (OASIS: Unknown payors (no payer recorded)). The seven payers never overlap; their counts add up to all. Definitions: https://oasis.state.ga.us/dtt/content/DefBirth.html. Payer rows have demographic and mother_age = 'all' (never crossed). A payer's percent divides by that payer's own births. Payer rows start in 2008, the revised birth certificate's first full year (as births_by_payer); medicare rows exist only in 2013 and 2014 and peachcare rows only in 2013, 2014 and 2016, the years either has births.","valid_values":["all","medicaid","medicare","private_insurance","self_pay","peachcare","other","unknown"],"example":"all","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"outcome","type":"string","role":"categorical","nullable":false,"label":"Outcome","short_description":"Birth outcome (low / very low birthweight, preterm)","description":"The birth outcome: low_birthweight (birthweight under 2,500 grams), very_low_birthweight (under 1,500 grams, so every very low birthweight birth is also a low birthweight birth) and preterm (under 37 completed weeks of gestation; OASIS's Premature Births). The outcomes overlap (many preterm births are low birthweight) and have no total: never add them. Definitions: https://oasis.state.ga.us/dtt/content/DefBirth.html.","valid_values":["low_birthweight","very_low_birthweight","preterm"],"example":"low_birthweight","unit":null,"value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":null,"key_metric_grain_contributor":true,"metric_component":null},{"name":"pct_of_births","type":"number","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Percent of Births","short_description":"Share of births with the outcome (low birthweight, preterm, ...)","description":"OASIS's percent of the group's live births with the outcome (low birthweight, very low birthweight or preterm), as a proportion: num_births_with_outcome / num_births, the same place, year and group in both (a mother's age group, race group or payer divides by its own births). Combine places, years or groups as SUM(num_births_with_outcome) / SUM(num_births) over rows where both are published, never an average of percents; a race group's pool across counties in 2000-2012 leaves out the 97 county-years our race mask NULLs (both counts NULL there), so it covers fewer places than asked. Georgia 2025, low_birthweight: 0.1002 (12,542 of 125,143 births). In preterm 2008-2014 and every outcome in 2021 OASIS's denominator leaves out births of unknown gestational age or birthweight, so the percent is slightly above the counts' ratio there (limitations).","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":"proportion","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"OASIS withholds the percent on 1-4 births with the measure (code -5, 64,768 rows over all years); where the group had no births at all in the place (num_births 0), OASIS shows 0 but a percent of no births is undefined (our mask, 50,844 rows); race_unknown has no percent (our residual; OASIS publishes one only for its unknown-ethnicity cell, not served, see limitations). Never recompute a withheld percent from the counts. Our mask for rows with more than 20% of their births of unknown value NULLs no row here. NULL on every race group's row of a place-year whose births are more than 20% race_unknown (our mask, the births topic's rule; 97 place-years).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":null},{"name":"num_births_with_outcome","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Number Births with Outcome","short_description":"","description":"Live births with the outcome to mothers resident in the place, in the group (low birthweight, very low birthweight or preterm). Very low birthweight births are also counted as low birthweight; never sum across outcomes. OASIS publishes every count, however small. race_unknown is our subtraction from OASIS's counts.","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"Our mask for rows with more than 20% of their births of unknown value NULLs no row here. race_unknown's count (all minus the race groups) is NULL where the all row's or a race group's is under that mask. NULL on every race group's row of a place-year whose births are more than 20% race_unknown (our mask, the births topic's rule; 97 place-years).","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":"numerator"},{"name":"num_births","type":"integer","role":"metric","nullable":true,"label":"Number Births","short_description":"","description":"Every live birth to mothers resident in the place, in the group (OASIS's Births), the percent's denominator, repeated on every outcome row, so never sum it across outcome values. The same figures as the births topic's num_births (its demographic and mother_age rows, NULL on the same race-group rows) and births_by_payer's payer counts (this topic's payer rows and births_by_payer both start in 2008). race_unknown is our subtraction. It is the percent's denominator except where OASIS's own leaves out a few births of unknown birthweight or gestational age (preterm 2008-2014 and every outcome in 2021; at most 0.011 percentage points for Georgia, see limitations).","valid_values":null,"example":null,"unit":"count","value_min":null,"value_max":null,"null_meaning":"NULL on every race group's row of a place-year whose births are more than 20% race_unknown (our mask, the births topic's rule; 97 place-years). The all, mother's age, payer and race_unknown rows always carry it.","key_metric_grain_contributor":false,"metric_component":"denominator"}],"key_metric":"pct_of_births","numeric_filter_columns":["pct_of_births","num_births_with_outcome","num_births"],"usage":"Pin one outcome (there is no total; low_birthweight is the usual headline), then demographic = 'all', mother_age = 'all' and payer = 'all' for totals; the three breakdowns are never crossed, so filter one and leave the others at 'all'. Compare places, groups or years with pct_of_births. Combine places, years or groups within one outcome as SUM(num_births_with_outcome) / SUM(num_births) over rows where both are published, never an average of percents (in the years OASIS leaves births of unknown value out, this is a hair below OASIS's own figure); a race group's pool across counties in 2000-2012 leaves out the 97 county-years our race mask NULLs (both counts NULL there), so it covers fewer places than asked. Never add num_births_with_outcome or num_births across outcomes. The birthweight figures of Catoosa, Dade and Walker in 2008-2010 and 2012 are inflated (limitations). Compare preterm from 2008, race groups from 2010 (Georgia) or 2013 (counties), payers from 2008. Read directly with DuckDB over Parquet.","limitations":"OASIS's percent of a group's live births that are low birthweight (under 2,500 g), very low birthweight (under 1,500 g, inside low) or preterm (under 37 weeks), not a rate per resident. The outcomes overlap: never add them. NULL on 1-4 such births. Preterm breaks in 2008 (Georgia 14.1% to 11.9%): compare from 2008. Compare race groups from 2010 (Georgia) or 2013 (counties); NULL where over 20% lack race (our mask). Birthweight in Catoosa, Dade and Walker is inflated in 2008-2010 and 2012. Live births to mothers who live in Georgia, placed by the mother's county of residence (not where the birth happened); OASIS counts births, not pregnancies, so twins are two births. Each percent divides by the group's own births: a mother's age group, race group or payer by its births, not by all births in the place. demographic, mother_age and payer are never crossed: a row breaks down by one of them, the others at 'all' (OASIS's requests never cross them). OASIS publishes every count, however small, and withholds the percent on 1-4 births with the measure (NULL here); the platform adds no small-cell suppression of its own (its masks, below, are quality masks) and never recomputes a withheld percent. 31% of rows with births have no percent, mostly small counties and groups. Where a group had no births in a place (num_births 0) the percent is NULL: OASIS shows 0, but a percent of no births is undefined (our mask; the counts stay 0). That covers 50,844 rows over all outcomes, mostly small race and age groups and payers. Our mask for rows with more than 20% of their births of unknown value for the measure (OASIS's own threshold, which it applies only to whole years) NULLs no row here: no row leaves that many births out of its denominator. In some years OASIS leaves births with an unknown birthweight or gestational age out of the percent's denominator: low_birthweight and very_low_birthweight in 2021 (Georgia: 32 births); preterm in 2008-2014 (Georgia: 65-132 births a year) and 2021 (Georgia: 32 births). There the percent is slightly above num_births_with_outcome / num_births, by at most 0.01 percentage points for Georgia and up to 4.5 points in groups of a few births; in every other year the two are equal (proved on every row). In Catoosa, Dade and Walker (the Tennessee border) in 2008-2010 and 2012, OASIS's birthweight figures are inflated by births with no recorded race or ethnicity (47%-78% of each county's births in those years; probably records of births in Tennessee hospitals, our reading): 7.4%-14.7% of those births are very low birthweight, against 2.2%-3.2% in 2011. So the counties' very low birthweight percents are 4.9%-8.4% in those years (at most 3.1% in any other year), among them the four highest of any county-year with 100+ births, and their low birthweight percents run high too; the all, mother's age and payer rows carry it, the race groups do not (the excess is in race_unknown, which has no percent). Georgia's very low birthweight percent runs about 0.05-0.06 percentage points high in those years (our estimate). The preterm break: Georgia's preterm percent was 14.2% in 2006 and 14.1% in 2007, then 11.9% in 2008, while low birthweight held (9.5% and 9.6%); our reading is that the revised birth certificate (mid-2007) changed how gestational age is recorded, so preterm figures before 2008 are not comparable with later ones. The race groups' series break in 2007-2008, which looks like a change in how the mother's race was recorded (our reading; OASIS documents none): multiracial births rose from 648 in 2006 to 3,538 in 2007 and 6,961 in 2008, then held between 2,487 and 3,499 a year from 2010, so multiracial figures of 2007-2009 are not comparable with other years; white births fell from 66,940 to 57,568 and native_american births from 215 to 91 in 2008. race_unknown (unknown ethnicity, and in 2008-2016 also births recorded with no race) peaks at 5.1% of Georgia's births in 2009 (0.6% in 2025), so the race groups run that much low. Counties break harder and for longer: in 84 county-years of 2000-2012 (none since; 17 counties) more than 25% of births have no recorded race or ethnicity, up to 78%, most often in Catoosa, Dade and Walker (the Tennessee border) and in Tift and nearby counties from 2007, so OASIS's race groups for those county-years run far low (Tift: 414 of its births in 2011 had no recorded race or ethnicity, and OASIS counts its black births as 16 in 2011 and 199 in 2015). Hispanic births spiked in Sumter, Walton and Macon in 2008-2009 (Sumter: 92, 336, 290 and 56 in 2007-2010). Compare a county's race groups over time from 2013 only (its race_unknown share has been at most 17% since). Those county-years, and the others with more than 20% of births of unknown race, have their race groups NULL here (our mask), Tift's 2011 black births among them. Where the mother's race or ethnicity is unknown for more than 20% of a place-year's births (race_unknown / all num_births, the births topic's rule on the same births), every race group's percent, count and num_births for that place and year are NULL (our mask, OASIS's own 20% threshold for missing items): each group's figures would rest only on the births whose race was recorded. The all, mother's age, payer and race_unknown rows are kept, so the unknown share stays visible. That covers 97 county-years (2000-2012, 19 counties; never Georgia), 2,037 race-group rows. Race groups are the mother's race and ethnicity in the platform convention: hispanic is Hispanic of any race; white, black, asian, native_american (American Indian or Alaska Native), pacific_islander (Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander) and multiracial are non-Hispanic. race_unknown is our calculation, the total minus those seven (unknown ethnicity, or non-Hispanic of unknown race), so the race groups' counts add up to all where every one is published (our masks NULL some, below); it has no percent: OASIS publishes one only for its unknown-ethnicity cell, which equals race_unknown except in 2008-2016 (when race_unknown also holds non-Hispanic births of unknown race), so none is served, keeping one definition. mother_age is the mother's age at the birth in OASIS's groups (10_14, 15_17, 18_19, then five-year groups to 40_44, and 45_55); the groups' counts add up to all. Payer rows start in 2008, as in births_by_payer: before the revised birth certificate (mid-2007, per OASIS) the payer was recorded only as medicaid or unknown (2000-2004) or not at all (2005-2006), and 2007 is the transition. medicare rows exist only in 2013 and 2014 and peachcare rows only in 2013, 2014 and 2016, the years either has births (the revised certificate has no box for either, our reading); in other years no birth could carry them, so those rows are not served. Small groups give extreme percents (up to 100% of 5 births), preserved as published. Counties with 1,000+ births range from 5.5% low birthweight (county 13139, 2000) to 17.2% (county 13095, 2019). 2025, the newest year, was added to OASIS on 2026-04-30; OASIS marks no year provisional. Counties add up to Georgia, and the race groups (with race_unknown), mother's ages and payers to all, in both counts, wherever every count is published. Our masks NULL some (the race mask 2,037 race-group counts and their num_births in 97 county-years), so a sum across counties or groups falls short where they apply; never rebuild a masked count by subtraction. Not served: OASIS's SES-vulnerability rows (their percents are valid, each dividing by the SES group's own births, but the platform has no SES group yet) and the mother's education. tract_geoid is always NULL.","null_semantics":{"suppressed_to_null":true,"zero_is_real":true},"available_years":[2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023,2024,2025],"schema_hash":"4a5680d16f5e8df1bff4f276133726ade64734f44611282e4bbbc191de57be9d","tags":["health","georgia department of public health, office of health indicators for planning","birth_outcomes"],"granularity_description":"One row per year, county_fips, tract_geoid, demographic, mother_age, payer, outcome (geography columns are NULL at higher aggregation levels).","example_queries":[{"description":"Latest year (2025), counties detail","query":"SELECT * FROM birth_outcomes WHERE year = 2025 LIMIT 100"},{"description":"Filter by mother_age = all","query":"SELECT * FROM birth_outcomes WHERE mother_age = 'all' AND year = 2025 LIMIT 100"}],"foreign_keys":[{"column":"county_fips","target_object":"counties","target_columns":["county_fips"],"attribute_columns_added":["county_name"],"scope":"global"},{"column":"tract_geoid","target_object":"tracts","target_columns":["tract_geoid"],"attribute_columns_added":["tract_name"],"scope":"global"},{"column":"demographic","target_object":"demographics","target_columns":["demographic"],"attribute_columns_added":["demographic_label","demographic_category"],"scope":"global"}],"filters":[{"param":"year","kind":"year_exact","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_min","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"year_max","kind":"year_range","type":"integer","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"detail","kind":"detail","type":"string","multi_value":false,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["counties","states"],"default":"counties"},{"param":"county_fips","kind":"foreign_key","column":"county_fips","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"tract_geoid","kind":"foreign_key","column":"tract_geoid","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":false,"values":null},{"param":"demographic","kind":"foreign_key","column":"demographic","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["all","asian","black","hispanic","multiracial","native_american","pacific_islander","race_unknown","white"]},{"param":"mother_age","kind":"categorical","column":"mother_age","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["10_14","15_17","18_19","20_24","25_29","30_34","35_39","40_44","45_55","all"],"has_total":true,"total_value":"all","requires_single_value":false,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null},{"param":"payer","kind":"categorical","column":"payer","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["all","medicaid","medicare","private_insurance","self_pay","peachcare","other","unknown"],"has_total":true,"total_value":"all","requires_single_value":false,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null},{"param":"outcome","kind":"categorical","column":"outcome","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["low_birthweight","very_low_birthweight","preterm"],"has_total":false,"total_value":null,"requires_single_value":true,"nullable":false,"null_filter_token":null},{"param":"demographic_category","kind":"dimension_attribute","dimension":"demographics","column":"demographic_category","type":"string","multi_value":true,"enum_enforced":true,"values":["aggregate","disability","economic_status","esol","foster_care","gender","grade","homeless_status","migrant_status","military","race","sped"]}],"filter_hints":[],"non_additive":[{"column":"outcome","reason":"The outcomes overlap: every very low birthweight birth is also a low birthweight birth and many preterm births are low birthweight, so num_births_with_outcome summed across outcomes counts the same births two or three times; num_births is every birth of the place and group, repeated on every outcome row."}],"partitions":[],"value_implications":[],"year_meaning":null,"pooled_rates":[],"series_breaks":[],"year_window":null,"pooled_min_count":{"count":5,"reason":"OASIS withholds percents based on 1-4 births with the outcome (shown as * on OASIS), so no figure combined from fewer than 5 births with the outcome is given."},"values_endpoint":"/api/v1/health/birth_outcomes/values"}