Gestational Age and Disease Patterns in Early Childhood: A Comprehensive Study Using Large Sample Size

• Activity Number: 192 - Study of Health Outcomes Using Large Cohort Data
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 : 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
• Sponsor: Biometrics Section
• Author(s): Hacene Boukari* and Fatima Boukari and Md Hossain
• Companies: Delaware State University and Delaware State University and Nemours Biomedical Research, A.I. DuPont Children's Hospital
• Keywords: Gestational Age; fetal maturity; pre-term birth; post-term birth

Abstract

Gestational age (GA) and fetal maturity at birth is closely related. Because of the developmental sequence of organ systems and functions in utero, individuals with different GAs hold varying health status at birth and later in life. Both pre- and post-term births are associated with elevated prevalence of adverse health outcomes affecting organ systems and functional domains since early life. Published studies mostly focused on examining prevalence of specific diseases over gestational terms. This study aimed at examining GA-specific disease prevalence by ICD 9 code-based individual- and group-health conditions over GA weeks and known GA categories during the first 5 years of life. First, we screened the prevalence of 2007 unique diagnoses from 2772 children to select commonly (>100 ) occurred conditions for formal examination. Then, we examined the variation in prevalence of selected diseases over GA week and established GA categories. Moreover, we identified spans of GA period with homogeneous prevalence of a specific disease. Findings could be useful for streamlining the resources of public health surveillance and prevention services to the groups that are in the most need.