ArticleAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences2018
Triple surveillance: a proposal for an integrated strategy to support and accelerate birth defect prevention.
Article in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Opportunities and Challenges for Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies in Sub-Saharan Africa.Birth defects research · 2026Article
- 51st annual meeting of ICBDSR: data that counts - transforming lives through birth defects surveillance.Journal of community genetics · 2026Article
- Epidemiological surveillance in congenital anomalies and rare diseases in Brazil: present situation and future challenges.Journal of community genetics · 2025Review
- Action against birth defects: if not now, when?Global health action · 2024Article
- Neural tube defects: a review of global prevalence, causes, and primary prevention.Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery · 2023Review
- Integrated surveillance strategy to support the prevention of neural tube defects through food fortification with folic acid: the experience of Costa Rica.Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery · 2023Review
- Review of Existing Models to Predict Reductions in Neural Tube Defects Due to Folic Acid Fortification and Model Results Using Data from Cameroon.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
- Why are Birth Defects Surveillance Programs Important?Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Folate supplementation for prevention of congenital heart defects and low birth weight: an update.Cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy · 2019Review
- Congenital anomalies and associated risk factors in a Saudi population: a cohort study from pregnancy to age 2 years.BMJ open · 2019Article
- A consensus statement on birth defects surveillance, prevention, and care in Latin America and the Caribbean.Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Preventing neural tube defects (NTDs) easily qualifies as a high-value opportunity to improve childhood survival and health: the unmet need is significant (major preventable burden), the intervention is transformative (providing sufficient folic acid), and delivery strategies (e.g., fortification) are effective in low-resource countries. Yet, NTD prevention is lagging. Can public health surveillance help fix this problem? Critics contend that surveillance is largely unnecessary, that limited resources are best spent on interventions, and that surveillance is unrealistic in developing countries. The counterargument is twofold: (1) in the absence of surveillance, interventions will provide fewer benefits and cost more and (2) effective surveillance is likely possible nearly everywhere, with appropriate strategies. As a base strategy, we propose "triple surveillance:" integrating surveillance of cause (folate insufficiency), of disease occurrence (NTD prevalence), and of health outcomes (morbidity, mortality, and disability). For better sustainability and usefulness, it is crucial to refocus and streamline surveillance activities (no recreational data collection), weave surveillance into clinical care (integrate in clinical workflow), and, later, work on including additional risk factors and pediatric outcomes (increase benefits at low marginal cost). By doing so, surveillance becomes not a roadblock but a preferential path to prevention and better care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.