Assessing perinatal hepatitis B screening and neonatal prophylaxis in a large, hultiethnic county

OBJECTIVE: To assess the completeness of maternal screening and appropriateness of newborn prophylaxis for hepatitis B virus (HBV) in 2001 in Florida's largest county. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective cohort study sampled 1% of deliveries at all hospitals in Miami-Dade County that had delivery suites. Abstractors reviewed mothers' and newborns' charts before discharge to determine whether newborns received appropriate HBV prophylaxis based on mothers' hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) status at 12 hours postpartum. At each hospital, deliveries were sampled sequentially until the target number was reached. Sampling was done for March-August 2001. RESULTS: Among 339 deliveries at 14 hospitals, the mother's HBsAg status was known within 12 hours of delivery for 286, or 84.4% (95% CI 80.1-88.1%). Of the 53 infants whose mothers' HBsAg status was unknown, 15 (28.3%) were vaccinated within 12 hours of delivery; both infants whose mothers were HBsAg positive received vaccine and immune globulin within 12 hours of delivery. CONCLUSION: While HBsAg screening of pregnant women is widespread in Miami-Dade County, the information is not consistently used to protect infants whose mothers' HBsAg status is unknown.