Jeffrey D. Colvin, MD, FAAP

Medical Director, Legal Aid Referral Program; Medical Director, Center for Family & Community Connections; Director, Research, General Academic Pediatrics; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine; Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics, University of Kansas School of Medicine

Full Biography

Jeffrey Colvin, MD, FAAP, Pediatrics, received a 2-year, $70,000 grant award from the American SIDS Institute.

Dr. Colvin’s study, “Using Machine Learning to Differentiate Mechanisms of SUPC from Other SUID Deaths,” will investigate differences in sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) by age. The research will focus on differences in factors associated with sudden unexpected postnatal collapse (SUPC) compared to SUID at older ages.

“Although case reports have highlighted the potential relationship of SUPC to rooming-in and skin-to-skin care, which are two recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to increase breastfeeding in birth hospitals, this has not been studied in a larger sample,” said Dr. Colvin.

The practice of rooming-in as defined by the WHO and United Nations Children's Fund is a “hospital practice where postnatal mothers and normal infants stay together in the same room for 24 hours a day from the time they arrive in their room after delivery.”

To better characterize SUPC in a large, detailed sample, Dr. Colvin and his team will use known risk factors for SUID and traditional statistical analyses to compare the characteristics of infants dying of SUPC to older infants who died from SUID. They will then use machine learning techniques and 200+ variables to identify novel risk factors and combinations of risk factors associated with SUPC.

“After accomplishing this we will have provided the largest and most robust description of infant deaths due to SUPC and we will have preliminarily identified previously unknown risk factors for SUPC,” said Dr. Colvin. “These findings will help inform WHO and AAP recommendations to support breastfeeding while decreasing SUPC.”

Rachel Moon, MD, University of Virginia School of Medicine will also serve as an investigator on the project. Matt Hall, PhD, Children’s Hospital Association and Children’s Mercy – Kansas City, is a co-investigator.