CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Prevention, and Surveillance (NCBDDD), posted the grant notice Advancing Population-Based Surveillance of Birth Defects (CDC-RFA-DD21-2101) on October 5, 2020, seeking to strengthen the capacity of existing surveillance programs and improve the health outcomes among affected populations.
Birth defects, a leading cause of infant mortality in the U.S contributes substantially to healthcare costs and lifelong disabilities. Birth defects found in one in every 33 babies in the U.S, account for more than 20% of infant deaths and contribute to $2.6 billion annually in hospital costs alone.
The goal is to improve surveillance of birth defects by leveraging EHR records and interoperability capabilities to enhance surveillance of birth defects, improve birth defects surveillance data quality, and use surveillance data to improve health outcomes in affected populations.
Although CDC has been funding surveillance of birth defects since the 1990’s, changes in health risks to mothers and babies along with changes in healthcare management now require that birth defects surveillance programs evolve and develop new capacities.
In addition, the emergence of EHRs and the capacity to electronically exchange health data between systems plus the fact that using standards such as HL7 for the exchange of clinical and administrative data, is changing the way public health interacts with the medical community to support surveillance.
The estimated total program funding is $3,100,00. The closing date for applications is December 8, 2020. Eligible applicants can include nonprofits, for profits, Native American tribal governments, small businesses, state, city and county governments, and universities.
Go to https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html for more information.