Trend Toward Older Maternal Age Contributed To Growing Racial Inequity In Very-Low-Birthweight Infants In The US.

ABSTRACT: In 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that for the first time, US women in their thirties were bearing more children than those in their twenties. Analyzing US vital statistics data from the period 1989-2019, we simulated the effect that the distributional shift to older maternal ages at first birth had on health inequity between Black and White infants. Net of maternal socioeconomic indicators, this shift increased the relative odds that White women gave birth to very-low-birthweight (VLBW) infants by 10 percent, versus 19 percent for Black women, largely accounting for the rise in VLBW and the increase in racial inequity seen in the years analyzed. Reductions in infant mortality over the period were dampened by the maternal age shift, especially among Black babi

SUBMITTER: Geronimus AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10559944 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature