Disparities in disease burden of congenital heart disease among 150,488 individuals in Western China

Congenital heart disease (CHD) has severe impact on people's health status and disease burden worldwide. Little is known about the disparities of the CHD burden in the western China. We aimed to analyze the disparities in sex, age, ethnic, marital status, and medical insurance so that we can improve the equity and reduce the disease burden among patients. We did a hospital-based cross-sectional study using data from a specialized cardiovascular hospital in western China, including health status, demographic and medical information. Logistic regression models were used in order to explore the association between CHD and sex, age, marital status, ethnic and medical insurance. Probit regression model was also used in sensitivity analysis. Female patients were more like to have CHD than their male counterparts (OR = 0.667; 95%CI = 0.515, 0.863; P = 0.002). Using people who aged less than 10 years old as reference, we found people aged between 10 and 19 years old, 20 to 29 years old, 30-39 years old, 40-49 years old had higher probability to suffer from CHD (OR = 11.051; 95%CI: 5.526, 22.097; P < 0.001; OR = 7.534; 95%CI: 3.528, 16.092; P < 0.001; OR = 3.479; 95%CI: 1.551, 7.803; P = 0.002; OR = 2.778; 95%CI: 1.313, 5.874; P = 0.008; respectively). Compared with no medical insurance, people use Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance and Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance have lower CHD prevalence (OR = 0.478; 95%CI: 0.274, 0.834; P = 0.009; OR = 0.408; 95%CI: 0.251, 0.663; P < 0.001; respectively). However, people with New rural cooperative medical insurance have higher CHD prevalence (OR = 1.985; 95%CI: 1.188, 3.316; P = 0.009). We also found significant relevance between marital status and the prevalence of CHD, married people had lower CHD prevalence compared with divorced or widowed respondents (OR = 0.492; 95%CI: 0.268, 0.904; P = 0.022). In this study, significant disparities were found in disease burden of CHD among different sex, age, marital status and medical insurance types. Our findings underscore the need for government and healthcare providers to prioritize early detection and proactive measures for CHD, with a particular focus on the demographic factors of sex and age. Additionally, enhancing the accessibility and coverage of public medical insurance is highlighted as a critical area for future improvement to mitigate the disease burden.