Birth defects surveillance for public health practice.

Abstract

This issue of Birth Defects Research continues a tradition begun 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 in 2000. Each year, we provide a special issue aimed at advancing the field of birth defects surveillance, epidemiology, and public health practice. Starting in 2021 and moving forward, the annual NBDPN issue consists of an editorial along with contributed manuscripts utilizing birth defects surveillance data for epidemiologic research or to improve birth defects surveillance methods. The program directory and state data tables, previously part of the annual issue, are now produced biannually, and disseminated through the NBDPN website (https://www.nbdpn.org/) rather than through the Birth Defects Research journal portal. This year, our report includes an editorial along with five research papers. Three of these papers represent collaborations between state birth defects programs, researchers and colleagues, while the other two are detailed analyses using data from individual states. This issue begins with an editorial focusing on birth defects across the lifespan. Using examples from congenital heart defects and spina bifida, the authors make the case for a renewed focus on secondary prevention and public awareness of these conditions and how they affect individuals and their families as they age. Three of the five contributed scientific papers utilize data from National Birth Defects Prevention Network collaborations. Stallings et al. examine the prevalence of critical congenital heart defects and selected co-occurring birth defects. A second paper by Stallings et al. extends the analysis presented in our 2021 report to examine how co-occurring birth defects among infants with Down syndrome vary by maternal race/ethnicity. The third paper uses data from the New York Birth Defects Registry to study differences in infant mortality among infants born with spina bifida by level of the spinal lesion. Liberman et al. contribute a collaborative study using data from several birth defects registries to examine prevalence of specific birth defects in relation to interpregnancy interval. The final paper by Bergman et al. is a study on health care expenditures for infants with and without birth defects that may be related to Zika virus infection in the state of North Carolina. The articles included in this issue of Birth Defects Research 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). Each article included in this issue 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 Jennifer Isenburg, Erin Stallings, and Leslie O’Leary 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 assistance with the submission and publication of these manuscripts. We also would like to thank the Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for its support of the NBDPN.