Sociodemographic profile associated with congenital heart disease among infants <1 year old

Abstract

Purpose: Congenital heart disease affects thousands of newborns each year in the United States. Previous United States-based research has explored how sociodemographic factors may impact health outcomes in infants with congenital heart disease; however, their impact on the incidence of congenital heart disease is unclear. We explored the sociodemographic profile related to congenital heart disease to help address health disparities that arise from race and social determinants of health. Defining the sociodemographic factors associated with congenital heart disease will encourage implementation of potential preventative measures.

Design and methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinally collected data comparing 39 infants with congenital heart disease and 30 healthy controls. We used a questionnaire to collect sociodemographic data. Pearson's chi-square test/Fisher's exact tests analyzed the associations among different sociodemographic factors between infants with congenital heart disease and healthy controls.

Results: We found a statistically significant difference in maternal education between our 2 groups of infants (p = 0.004).

Conclusion: Maternal education was associated with congenital heart disease. Future studies are needed to further characterize sociodemographic factors that may predict and impact the incidence of congenital heart disease and to determine possible interventions that may help decrease health disparities regarding the incidence of congenital heart disease.

Practice implications: Understanding the associations between maternal sociodemographic factors and infant congenital heart disease would allow clinicians to identify mothers at higher risk of having an infant with congenital heart disease.

Keywords: Congenital heart defects; Infants; Maternal education; Social determinants of health; Sociodemographic.