Variation in the prevalence of congenital heart defects by maternal race/ethnicity and infant sex.
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.
Nembhard
Wendy N
WN
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
Wang
Tao
T
Loscalzo
Melissa L
ML
Salemi
Jason L
JL
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