Thursday, March 6, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Prior to 1995, Vital Records used a number of "assumption rules" to ascertain marital status as part of its duty to collect statistical information for submission to the National Center for Health Statistics. One of these assumptions was that a mother is unmarried if she doesn't use her husband's last name. Critics of these assumption rules noted that the practice may have led to an over-reporting of births to unmarried women. At that time, Nevada was one of only a handful of states that still collected the data indirectly. After 1995, the State Office of Vital Records began collecting this information directly from new mothers. Since this change in methodology was done administratively, it can be changed again by a new administration. Therefore, I requested the bill to codify the current practice, just as other states have done. In 1996, the state of California became the most recent state to enact similar legislation.
Since we are required by the federal government to report this information, and since other states follow the same methodology, it is prudent that Nevada establish the same program within law. This step will help to ensure accurate reporting and will help health planners evaluate the success of various health and social services programs that use marital-status data.
State Sen. Kathy Augustine
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