Researchers Awarded a Five-Year, $2.5M Grant to Create a Multi-Dimensional Surveillance System for Congenital Heart Defects

UTHealth Houston School of Public Health researchers were recently awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a multi-dimensional surveillance system for congenital heart defects (CHD). 

In partnership with Baylor College of Medicine and the School of Public Health’s Center for Health Care Data, the team will analyze critical outcomes such as age-specific mortality, healthcare disparities, and the role of respiratory viruses in CHD occurrence. The project will integrate multiple data sources, including the Texas Birth Defects Registry and the Texas All-Payer Claims Database, along with pooled data from other states, marking this as an innovative initiative in the field. 

“It represents one of the most comprehensive CHD surveillance systems in Texas, particularly in its ability to capture data on diagnoses and procedures across diverse populations,” said Assistant Professor Jenil Patel, MBBS, MPH, PhD, co-investigator on the award. “This collaboration will be critical to developing more effective healthcare strategies for managing CHDs.” 

The surveillance system will allow researchers to combine datasets from Texas and five other states, tracking trends from infancy to adulthood across the U.S. to improve health outcomes. Patel and the team will use this data to design tailored interventions for patients with CHD to address expected highlights such as racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors that may be preventing CHD management. “We hope our findings will improve population-level resource planning and provide the foundation for understanding and working toward preventing CHD occurrence and adverse outcomes among affected individuals,” said principal investigator A.J. Agopian, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology.  

Additionally, the project aims to foster stronger collaborations between researchers, providers, and policymakers. Through this, findings can be used at the state and national level to craft policies to strengthen the distribution of care and initiatives to address health disparities in caring for individuals with CHD. 

“Policymakers can use this information to allocate resources more equitably, ensure that CHD patients have access to specialized care throughout their lives, and create targeted prevention strategies,” said Agopian.

 
Other researchers include Cecilia Ganduglia, MD, DrPH, and Baylor College of Medicine collaborators.