Insurance-Related Disparities Seen in Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease
TUESDAY, Oct. 8, 2024 -- Second-trimester ultrasound receipt mediates a considerable portion of the association between public insurance and prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD), according to a study published online Sept. 23 in Prenatal Diagnosis.
Joyce L. Woo, M.D., from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of electronic health records of pregnant women whose infants received CHD surgery between 2019 and 2020 to examine the mechanism underlying insurance-related disparities in prenatal diagnosis of CHD.
A total of 496 pregnant women met the inclusion criteria: 43.3 percent were publicly insured and 61.5 percent had prenatal diagnosis. Public insurance was associated with a 12.6 percent lower probability of prenatal diagnosis in bivariate regressions. Public insurance was associated with a 13.2 percent lower probability of second-trimester ultrasound receipt in multivariable models, but was no longer associated with prenatal diagnosis after adjustment for second-trimester ultrasound receipt. Second-trimester ultrasound receipt mediated 39 percent of the association between public insurance and prenatal diagnosis in a mediation analysis.
"Understanding the reasons behind insurance-related disparities in getting prenatal diagnosis -- such as getting the second-trimester ultrasound -- allows for the development of policies and programs that could lessen these disparities," Woo said in a statement.
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Read this next
Evidence Insufficient to Determine Benefits of Multicancer Screening Tests
THURSDAY, Sept. 18, 2025 -- No controlled studies report benefits of screening with multicancer detection (MCD) tests, according to a study published online Sept. 16 in the Annals...
Nonadherence to Cervical Cancer Screening Increased After COVID-19 Pandemic
THURSDAY, Sept. 18, 2025 -- Nonadherence to cervical cancer screening in the United States increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published online Sept. 10...
Guidance Issued for Creation of pAVFs for Hemodialysis Access
THURSDAY, Sept. 18, 2025 -- In a guidance document issued by the Society of Interventional Radiology Practice and published online Sept. 9 in the Journal of Vascular and...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.