NEWS

School of Public Health gains CDC funding for new birth defects center

By BLAKE ALLEN
UNC School of Public Health

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health has received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to establish a N.C. Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention.

The five-year grant, to the school’s department of epidemiology, will provide $850,000 the first year to conduct epidemiological research on the causes of birth defects and enhance public health education and prevention efforts.

UNC is collaborating on the project with the N.C. Birth Defects Monitoring Program of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public Health.

Principal investigator is Dr. Andrew Olshan, professor of epidemiology. Co-principal investigator, Dr. Bob Meyer, is director of the N.C. Birth Defects Monitoring Program and an adjunct faculty member in the School of Public Health’s department of maternal and child health. Dr. David Savitz, professor and chairman of UNC’s department of epidemiology, and Dr. Art Aylsworth, chief of the division of genetics and metabolism in the department of pediatrics at UNC’s School of Medicine, are co-investigators.

"The center will provide timely resources and an administrative infrastructure that will facilitate ongoing and new birth defects research activities," said Olshan. "This research is critical because birth defects remain a leading cause of infant mortality, a serious public health problem in North Carolina and elsewhere."

The center aims to improve surveillance of birth defects in North Carolina by enhancing the birth defects program, collaborating on the CDC national birth defects case-control study and initiating and supporting diverse birth defects research and prevention projects at the state and national levels.

"DHHS and UNC have been working in partnership for years to reduce infant mortality and prevent birth defects," said Dr. Leah Devlin, acting state health director. "The new Center for Birth Defects Research and Prevention will help move North Carolina even closer to our shared goals of improving infants’ and children’s health and reducing health disparities."

UNC’s epidemiology department is internationally recognized as a leader in research.

"The department and the school are committed to supporting state and local public health programs and have developed strong ties with public health agencies in North Carolina," said Savitz. "The new center’s affiliation with a school of public health also provides a unique opportunity for training master’s and doctoral students interested in pursuing careers in birth defects epidemiology and prevention."

The birth defects program, which was legislatively mandated in 1995, maintains a statewide, population-based registry covering more than 110,000 births annually. The program has collaborated with UNC and other universities on teaching, research, program evaluations and other public health activities.

The new center will enable the state to enhance an already strong multi-agency collaboration that has been developed over the years. Such collaboration also adds considerable expertise upon which to build a strong research program, including epidemiology, surveillance, embryology, teratology and medical genetics.

Besides participating in the birth defects program, the center is conducting other research projects and activities, including evaluating gene-environment interactions and the risk of selected birth defects including neural tube defects, oral clefts and heart defects; examining the temporal-geographic patterns and risk factors for gastroschisis; investigating parental occupational and environmental exposures and the risk of birth defects; evaluating folic acid education programs in relation to the prevalence of neural tube defects and intake of folic acid; and assessing potential barriers related to access and use of health services among children with birth defects and their families.

The center’s partners include UNC’s Center for Maternal and Infant Health, Duke University Medical Center, N.C. chapters of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, the N.C. Folic Acid Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Fullerton Genetics Center of Mission St. Joseph’s Health System in Asheville, and the Women’s and Children’s Health Section of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public Health.

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(Allen, who earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication from UNC in May, is from Elizabethtown, N.C.)

Note: Olshan may be reached at (919) 966-7424 or andy_olshan@unc.edu.

School of Public Health contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 966-7467 or lisa_katz@unc.edu

News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415