Racial/ethnic differences in the birth prevalence of congenital anomalies in the United States.
OBJECTIVE
This work aimed to analyze a single large representative population to determine racial/ethnic differences in the prevalence of congenital anomalies (CA).


METHODS
This is a population-based comprehensive analysis of racial/ethnic differences in the prevalence of CA diagnoses. We reviewed all live births in the 2008 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database and determined the birth prevalence of 55 selected CA diagnoses in Caucasians. We then calculated the relative risk of these CA diagnoses in African American, Hispanics, and Asians relative to Caucasians.


RESULTS
Overall CA prevalence was 29.2 per 1000 in a cohort of 1,048,252 live births, of which 51% were Caucasians. Compared with Caucasians, risk of overall CA was lower in African Americans (RR=0.9, CI: 0.8-0.9) and Hispanics (RR=0.9, CI: 0.8-0.9). Risk of overall CA was similar in Caucasians and Asians. Relative to the Caucasians, African Americans had lower risk of cardiac, genitourinary, and craniofacial CA but higher risk of musculoskeletal anomalies. Hispanics had lower risk of genitourinary and gastrointestinal CA. Asians had higher risk of craniofacial and musculoskeletal CA.


CONCLUSIONS
Observed racial/ethnic differences in risk of CA may be related to genetic susceptibilities, cultural or social differences that could modify exposures, or many potential combinations between susceptibilities and exposures.
Alexander
A
Egbe
Simon
S
Lee
Deborah
D
Ho
Santosh
S
Uppu
Shubhika
S
Srivastava
D000013:Congenital Abnormalities / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D015995:Prevalence; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology