Leveraging Health Insurance Claims Data to Complement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Surveillance System for Birth Defects.

backgroundBirth defect surveillance can help identify temporo-spatial clusters and teratogenic signals to inform subsequent investigations or interventions. In the United States, state surveillance systems exist but collect limited information, prompting a complementary use of health insurance claims data to describe national birth defect prevalence trends and investigate signals.

methodsThe Merative MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters (MarketScan) database was used to identify liveborn infants from 2016 to 2022, with linkage to maternal health care records during pregnancy. Birth defects were identified using ICD-10-CM codes recorded in the first 3 months of life, and prevalence estimates with 95% confidence intervals were generated for birth defect categories and select birth defects.

resultsThe study population included 943,855 liveborn infants. From 2016 to 2022, the prevalence increased for cardiac, central nervous system, ear, genital, urinary, musculoskeletal, and limb birth defect categories. Stable prevalence over the study period was observed for chromosomal, oral cleft, respiratory, gastrointestinal, vascular, and eye defects. For specific defects, we observed an increased prevalence of both ankyloglossia and lip-tie over the study period and a transient higher prevalence of omphalocele over 2017 and 2018. Within genital birth defects, we observed increasing prevalence trends for congenital malformations of the penis, while hypospadias and cryptorchidism remained relatively stable.

conclusionHealth care utilization databases can complement existing surveillance systems by generating, confirming, or refuting signals based on ecological trends or clusters. The availability of patient information in claims databases can allow for further investigation of signals to inform birth defect etiology.