Linking Newborns and Mothers to Enable the Study of Inter-generational Health Outcomes: Evidence from Nationwide Medicaid Data.

Linking mothers to their newborns in health records is crucial for understanding the impact of policies, programs, and medical treatments on inter-generational health outcomes. While previous studies have used shared identifiers like names or addresses for linkage, such data are often unavailable in Medicaid records due to privacy concerns. We present a scalable framework and linking algorithm using Medicaid MAX and TAF claims data-lacking direct identifiers-that connects mothers and infants while ensuring privacy protection.