The power of administrative databases which accumulate data on population wide delivery of services derives from their ability to provide a population-based perspective on outcomes. The ability to combine information on individual backgrounds (such as area level socioeconomic status or age of mother at the time of a child’s birth) with birth status (such as birth weight or Apgar scores ) and educational outcomes (such as standards test performance or high school completion) for an entire population allows one to investigate the underlying causes of child health inequalities.