From the President

Welcome to the National Birth Defects Prevention Network (NBDPN) website.

The NBDPN was founded in 1997 as an organization of volunteers with interests in birth defects surveillance, birth defects prevention and with regard to interventions targeting the needs of children and families affected by birth defects. Network members include public health officials, epidemiologists, academics, parents, and others committed to understanding factors that may lead to birth defects, identifying strategies for reducing birth defects, and working to prevent potential secondary disabilities. Through collaboration, it is our mission to establish a network of state and population based programs with the intent of improving birth defects surveillance nationally, promoting collaboration on prevention activities, research into the prevention of birth defects and assessment of the effects of prevention and intervention activities.

Over the years the NBDPN has been instrumental in developing birth defects registry standards that establish core requirements for effective surveillance efforts and promote uniformity across state and regional registries. The Network has also facilitated a number of multistate research efforts that enable addressing research questions which would be impractical to examine without cross-registry collaboration.

Three key products of the Network that we are especially proud of would be an Annual Report on birth defects prevalence, Birth Defects Prevention Month packets that provide focused and informative materials on specific birth defects prevention topics each year and the NBDPN Birth Defects Surveillance Guidelines. These can be located and downloaded through the RESOURCES tab.

Also on our site is an indexed and comprehensive listing of research articles of potential interest to anyone concerned about the cause, prevention or prevalence of birth defects. This index, which is updated regularly, is accessed through our home page using the Articles of Potential Interest link.

I would like to invite you to look over our site, our bylaws and our various committees. As we are a volunteer organization, I would encourage you to consider joining the organization if our activities are of interest to you, and especially if you would like to become a part of the work we are doing. Membership is easy and the membership fee is relatively small. It opens our members only site to you, makes you eligible for our periodic Webinars on a range of birth defects surveillance associated topics and adds you to our list for receiving the NBDPN Newsletter.  In any case, I hope you find the site useful and informative. I also invite your suggestions for improving the site. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any comments or suggestions..

David Law, PhD
2012 NBDPN President
david.law@tn.gov