Otros aspectos de vigilancia epidemiológica del ECEMC: Evolución temporal y por Comunidades Autónomas, de los nacimientos de la población inmigrante / Other aspects of the epidemiological surveillance performed by ECEMC: Time distribution and distribution by Autonomous Regions of births from the immigrant population in Spain

Resumen

It is well known that immigration has increased along the time in Spain, especially in the most recent years. We have analyzed data from ECEMC in order to quantify this phenomenon in the sample of 35,441 controls (newborn infants without congenital defects) registered by ECEMC in the period 1980-2009, since the group of immigrants usually has a set of characteristics which increase their offspring’s risk for being born with congenital anomalies. ECEMC gathers information on the birth place and ethnic group of parents and grandparents of both controls and cases registered with congenital anomalies. Most of immigrant parents (62.82%) come from non-european countries. Globally, the Autonomous Regions with the higher percentages of immigrant parents were the Balearic Islands (18%), Community of Madrid (15.84%), Comunidad Valenciana (15.16%) and Catalonia (13.08%). In the year 2009, however, the higher percentages were registered in Catalonia, followed by Community of Madrid, Balearic Islands and Comunidad Valenciana. There has been a statistically significant increase of births from immigrants along the time, from 1.89% of total control births in 1980-1985, up to 23.92% in the year 2009. This increase has been more pronounced for the group of immigrants from non-european countries. Since 1996, the proportion of births from non-European countries is higher than the counterpart of infants being born to European immigrants in Spain. Data from the different Autonomous regions mostly reflect this general tendency. In the groups of immigrants, the most frequent ethnic group was that of whites (96.84% among immigrants coming from European countries, and 41.73% among those coming from non-european countries). There is almost total concordance of data from ECEMC with the official data registered by INE (Spanish National Institute for Statististics). Knowing the magnitude of the different groups of immigrants in Spain is very important in order to properly design the different plans for prevention of congenital anomalies, according to the special risks of each population group.