Expanding Prenatal Care to Unauthorized Immigrant Women and the Effects on Infant Health.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To measure the effect of access to prenatal care on unauthorized and low-income, new legal permanent resident immigrant women and their offspring.

Methods

We used a difference-in-differences design that leverages the staggered rollout of Emergency Medicaid Plus by county from 2008 to 2013 as a natural experiment to estimate the effect on health service utilization for women and health outcomes for their infants. Regular Medicaid pregnancies were used as an additional control in a triple difference design.

Results

Our sample included pregnancies covered by Emergency Medicaid (35,182), Emergency Medicaid Plus (12,510), and Medicaid (166,054). After expansion of access to prenatal care, there was an increase in prenatal visits (7.2 more visits, 95% CI 6.45-7.96

SUBMITTER: Swartz JJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5679477 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature