Social and anthropometric factors explaining racial/ethnical differences in birth weight in the United States.

ABSTRACT: Though disparities in birth weight by race/ethnicity have been extensively reported in the United States, few studies have systematically investigated factors attributing to its variability. For 10,638,415 singleton infants born during 2009-2012 in the United States, we examined birth weight differences among 14 races and ethnicities (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic Black, American Indian, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Guamanian, Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban), after sequentially adjusting for maternal, socio-economic and behavioral factors. Average birthweight of non-Hispanic white infants was 3381 g, while for other races/ethnicities birth weight ranged from being 289 g smaller in Japanese to 126 g larger in Samoan infants. Factors explaining

SUBMITTER: Morisaki N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5399358 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature