Economic Downturns and Inequities in Birth Outcomes: Evidence From 149 Million US Births.

ABSTRACT: Using birth certificate data for nearly all registered US births from 1976 to 2016 and monthly data on state unemployment rates, we reexamined the link between macroeconomic variation and birth outcomes. We hypothesized that economic downturns reduce exposure to work-related stressors and pollution while increasing exposure to socioeconomic stressors like job loss. Because of preexisting inequalities in health and other resources, we expected that less-educated mothers and black mothers would be more exposed to macroeconomic variation. Using fixed-effect regression models, we found that a 1-percentage-point increase in state unemployment during the first trimester of pregnancy increased the probability of preterm birth by 0.1 percentage points, while increases in the state unemployment rat

SUBMITTER: Noelke C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7476222 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature