John Eichwald, CDC, LT Anne Jarrett, USN, Craig Mason, Ph.D., U of Maine
With approximately 90,000 military-births a year, the combined US Military Forces have more births than approximately three-fourths of any individual state. Complicating the coordination between screening, diagnosis, and intervention, these births occur in a mobile population (with almost 20% of these births occurring to active duty mothers) and they occur in every state and in over 20 different countries. The largest portion of births involve Army families (40%), with 25% of births involving Navy families, 25% involving Air Force families, and 10% involving Marine families. Consequently, coordination of newborn hearing services for families is an issue that crosses all branches of the military. An informal survey of state/territory EHDI programs suggested that less than half of military hospitals may be reporting child-level data to state EHDI programs, and 30% may be reporting no data at all. This pattern varies from hospital to hospital, and appears to vary with changes in the command structure at military hospitals.
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