title: Variation in the prevalence of congenital heart defects by maternal race/ethnicity and infant sex.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the prevalence of major congenital heart defects (CHD) by ethnicity and sex.
  
  
  METHODS
  Data from the Florida Birth Defects Registry was used to conduct a retrospective cohort study with 8029 singleton infants with 11 CHDs born 1998-2003 to resident non-Hispanic (NH) white, NH-black, and Hispanic women aged 15 to 49. Defect-specific prevalence rates, ratios, and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. Poisson regression was used to calculate adjusted ethnic-specific rate ratios (RR) for each CHD. Statistical significance was P < .0001.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared with NH-whites, NH-black males had significantly increased rates of pulmonary valve atresia/stenosis (RR = 1.66) but lower prevalence of aortic valve atresia/stenosis (RR = 0.33) and ventricular septal defect (VSD; RR = 0.78). Hispanic males had lower rates of aortic valve atresia/stenosis (RR = 0.28), coarctation of the aorta (RR = 0.61) and VSD (RR = 0.79). NH-black females had statistically significantly lower rates of VSD (RR = 0.75), and Hispanic females had lower rates of tetralogy of Fallot (RR = 0.54), VSD (RR = 0.84) and atrioventricular septal defects (RR = 0.53) compared with NH-whites.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found differences in ethnic susceptibilities to CHD by sex, but the cause remains unclear.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of South Florida, 13201Bruce B. Downs Blvd, MDC 56, Tampa, FL 33612-3805, USA. wnembha@health.usf.edu
authors.forename: Wendy N
authors.initials: WN
authors.lastname: Nembhard
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Melissa L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Loscalzo
authors.forename: Jason L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Salemi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004198:Disease Susceptibility / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D005431:Florida / Q000453:epidemiology; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data