Adapting the pregnancy risk assessment monitoring survey to enhance locally available data: methods.

Despite the increasing emphasis on pre- and interconception planning, perinatal data available to local municipalities and organizations is often limited to that on the birth certificate. A partnership between a local health department and an academic medical center sought to overcome this gap. Using the core questions from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and a stratified random sample methodology (by income) in a county with ~8,000 annual births we mailed 2,462 surveys to mothers who gave birth between May 2009 and April 2010.