A European study led by Swansea University reveals that children with major congenital anomalies from poorer backgrounds face markedly higher early mortality, highlighting the influence of socioeconomic factors on health outcomes.
Children born with major congenital anomalies are far more likely to die early if they come from poorer families, according to a major European study led by Swansea University.
Researchers analysing more than 47,000 children across seven countries found that socioeconomic disadvantage was tied to markedly worse survival, with the gap especially clear after the first year of life. The findings, published in PLOS One, drew on data from 10 congenital anomaly registers and formed part of the EUROlinkCAT collaboration.
The work used the SAIL Databank at Swansea University, a secure system that links anonymised health and administrative records for research. Swansea says the databank is designed to allow large-scale analysis while keeping data privacy and governance tightly controlled, and has been used in a range of public health studies.
Professor Sue Jordan, the study’s lead author, said the divide between richer and poorer children was wider after infancy, when care depends less on emergency treatment and more on primary and community services. She added that the pattern was consistent only in Wales and Ukraine among the comparisons, noting that both countries had the lowest GDP per person in the group. According to the study, children in the most deprived households had a 47% higher risk of dying in their first year than those in the most affluent homes.
The inequality did not stop there. Between the ages of one and 10, mortality was about twice as high among children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. The strength of the link varied from country to country, but Wales was among the regions where deprivation was consistently associated with higher mortality in both infancy and later childhood.
Dr Hywel Turner Evans of SAIL Databank said the findings suggest these gaps are not inevitable, pointing to Denmark as a country where no clear association was seen. The researchers also reported higher mortality among children born to non-EU nationals in countries where that information was available, while maternal marital status did not show a clear relationship with survival.
The authors say secure linkage of routinely collected records offers an important way to understand long-term outcomes for children living with congenital anomalies and to identify where poverty may be shaping survival chances.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical judgment, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
