Actions in Support of Newborn Screening for Critical Congenital Heart Disease — United States, 2011–2018

Abstract

© 2019, Department of Health and Human Services. All rights reserved. What is already known about this topic? Critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) occurs in two of every 1,000 births and might be undetected at birth. Affected infants are at risk for substantial morbidity and death early in life. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary endorsed the Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children’s recommendation to add CCHD to the recommended universal newborn screening panel. What is added by this report? By 2018, all U.S. states and the District of Columbia had implemented newborn CCHD screening policies. Opportunities for program improvement, particularly around data collection, persist. Not all jurisdictions collect screening data or share data among relevant programs. What are the implications for public health practice? All U.S. newborns, regardless of which state they are born in, now have the opportunity to be screened for CCHD.