University of Missouri researchers have begun a nationwide study that aims to better understand cardiovascular disease in pregnancy.
It’s called the Heart Outcomes in Pregnancy Expectations, or HOPE, study and it was created by MU Healthcare, University of Missouri-Kansas City Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality and Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute.
Karen Florio is the vice chair of patient safety and quality for the Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MU Health Care and is the study’s principal investigator. Florio said the goal is to gather data on heart disease in pregnancy - according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiovascular disease is among the top five leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths.
“The general population does know about maternal mortality, but what they don't know is that cardiovascular disease is a leading cause. And so I'm hoping that we can really shed light on the fact that cardiovascular disease is not a disease of the old. It can affect the young, and it can affect you when you're pregnant," Florio said.
In Missouri, cardiovascular disease is the leading underlying cause of pregnancy-related deaths. Florio says the idea for the study came about when Missouri researchers noticed that even though rates pregnant people with heart disease were rising, there was a lack of reliable research.
"And so instead of just talking about it, we decided to do something about it," Florio said. "Every other state is having a similar problem. And so when we brought this up to other states, they were all for it, and really jumped on board and were incredibly collaborative."
MU Health Care will be the first of 36 sites across the country to enroll patients in the study, which is funded by an $8.3 million grant from the The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Florio said one of the largest reasons why she and other researchers decided to pursue the HOPE study was a lack of reliable data on cardiovascular disease and pregnancy within the United States. Most existing studies come from Canada and Europe, which Florio said is an issue because their demographics are vastly different than the United States.
“We know that marginalized birthing people have worse outcomes than white women, and so we really want to over represent them in our population. So we're recruiting 500 Black and Brown birthing people and capping the enrollment for white people at 500," Florio said.
Florio said this is to ensure a dataset that more closely represents those who give birth in the U.S.
The study aims to enroll 1,000 participants over the course of three years. Providers or patients interested in taking part in the study can contact the cardio-obstetric clinic at MU Health Care or call (573) 882-4107.
