Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: This report, prepared by the National Birth Defects Prevention Network (NBDPN) in collaboration with the U.S. National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, continues an annual practice initiated in 2000, providing materials to advance the field of birth defects surveillance, epidemiology, and public health practice. The reports comply with provisions of the Birth Defects Prevention Act of 1998 and its subsequent reauthorizations; these publications, first in Teratology and, since 2003, in Birth Defects Research, provide researchers and public health professionals with access to an important source of population-based data. The 2018 report includes nine original articles, an editorial focusing on the potential uses of population-based registry data to estimate recurrence risks for specific birth defects, and a data brief examining the prevalence of selected birth defects of the eye and ear pooling data from surveillance programs throughout the United States. The report also includes online materials: recent prevalence data on major birth defects from 41 population-based programs across the United States and a directory of these programs. The NBDPN continues its commitment to the primary prevention of birth defects and improvement of outcomes for children and families living with birth defects through the use of birth defects surveillance data for research, program planning, and program evaluation. This issue begins with an editorial by Agopian and collaborators describing the role of birth defects surveillance data for estimating birth defects recurrence risks, and making the case for arraying population-based pregnancy outcome data into sibship registries. Of the nine contributed papers, three address birth defects surveillance methods, two are descriptive epidemiology studies, and four present the findings of etiologic research. Five of these studies utilize data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS), while one analyzed a large data set with pooled data from numerous state birth defects surveillance programs. Anderka and collaborators examine how funding to support surveillance activities associated with the Zika epidemic of 2015–2017 affected the focus and structure of state birth defects programs, providing some timely lessons for future public health challenges. Glidewell and collaborators describe surveillance methods for population-based surveillance of congenital heart disease in adolescents and adults. Do and collaborators provide an update on the ongoing surveillance of muscular dystrophy pilot project in four states. The two descriptive epidemiology studies focus on prevalence of birth defects among infants born to American Indian/Alaskan Native mothers (Marengo and collaborators) and on the prevalence, clinical characteristics and other major birth defects associated with cerebellar hypoplasia along with an exploratory analysis of potential risk factors for cerebellar hypoplasia (Howley and collaborators). Four studies utilized NBDPS data to examine associations of birth defects with specific maternal or environmental exposures. Fisher and collaborators explore the association between use of antihypertensive medications early in pregnancy and selected birth defects, concluding that no association was present for most of the 28 birth defects examined and the few observed associations should be treated cautiously. Howley and collaborators examined the associations’ maternal genitourinary infections with birth defects, finding both periconceptional urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted infections associated with several specific birth defects. Using data from the Iowa NBDPS study site, Suhl and collaborators studied the association between maternal occupational, drinking water, and dietary arsenic exposure and nonsyndromic orofacial clefts. The authors observed positive associations between maternal occupational arsenic exposures and cleft palate only and called for improved assessment of various sources of exposure to inorganic arsenic as well as total arsenic. Soim and collaborators conducted a case–control study of the association between orofacial clefts and extreme heat events due to weather, observing no statistically significant associations. The articles included in this issue were selected from those submitted in response to a call for manuscripts distributed to all state birth defect surveillance programs, NBDPN members, the birth defects surveillance list service, and posted on the NBDPN website (http://www.nbdpn.org). All articles included here underwent both editorial and formal blinded peer review. The review process was facilitated by the use of the online ScholarOne peer-review management system provided by Wiley for the Birth Defects Research editors. As with many collaborative enterprises, dedicated individuals too numerous to mention contributed their time and effort to ensure the quality of the NBDPN annual report. These include the many peer reviewers of these manuscripts and the authors of all the submitted manuscripts. We also thank the members of the NBDPN Data and Publications and Communications Committees, as well as Cara Mai, Jennifer Isenburg, and Erin Stallings at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. We thank the Birth Defects Research editors, especially Michel Vekemans and Christina Chambers for their support of this endeavor, and Wiley staff their assistance with the submission and publication of these manuscripts. We also would like to thank the Division of Congenital and Developmental Disorders at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for its support of the NBDPN.
Source: Birth Defects Research
DOI: 10.1002/bdr2.1412
Authors: Russell S. Kirby, Marilyn L. Browne
Language: English
Subfield: Surgery
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2900313186