American journal of preventive medicine
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We report patterns of prenatal smoking cessation and postpartum relapse for a large urban population of pregnant women. We examined associations between sociodemographic factors and prepregnancy, pregnancy, and early postpartum smoking behavior. Forty-one percent of women smoking before pregnancy quit smoking during pregnancy. ⋯ Early postpartum smoking relapse rates differed by ethnicity. Twenty-eight percent of white women and 46% of black women who had quit during pregnancy relapsed within 6-12 weeks postpartum. Using logistic regression, we found formula feeding to be the most important predictor of early postpartum smoking relapse for both white and black women.
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During summer 1989, 30 Hispanic (15 men, 15 women) and 34 African American (17 men, 17 women) adolescents and young adults from Detroit participated in face-to-face interviews designed to provide preliminary descriptive data of this population's AIDS and condom knowledge, sexual behavior, and condom and needle use behavior. Results suggest almost all knew that AIDS could be transmitted sexually or by needle sharing, and most participants knew condoms protect against AIDS. Although many sexually active participants reported using condoms, the majority reported engaging in unprotected vaginal intercourse. ⋯ Many participants seemed unaware of the ineffectiveness of nonlatex condoms. Hispanic female participants seemed to have a low level of knowledge concerning their own reproductive health. Small numbers of Hispanic and African American participants reported that people in their neighborhood used needles to self-administer steroids or vitamins.
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Cardiovascular disease rates illustrate the excess morbidity and mortality associated with race and social class. However, while prevalence and deaths from heart disease are greater among black and lower socioeconomic status (SES) populations, researchers rarely consider possible confounds between race and SES. In a longitudinal study of 246 older myocardial infarction (MI) patients, differences appeared in both morbid events and death for black and lower SES patients. ⋯ Low SES black subjects ranked last in physical functioning and cardiac symptomatology, whereas high SES white subjects ranked first in preventive health opportunities. We also considered the potential race-SES confound as an interaction term in multiple regression analysis, and three recovery outcomes were significantly predicted by the joint effects of these variables. These findings demonstrate that failure to consider SES of black and white patients jointly, as well as individually, can lead to erroneous conclusions about health.