Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
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Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol · Sep 2015
ReviewPoverty, Pregnancy, and Birth Outcomes: A Study of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Economic interventions are increasingly recognised as a mechanism to address perinatal health outcomes among disadvantaged groups. In the US, the earned income tax credit (EITC) is the largest poverty alleviation programme. Little is known about its effects on perinatal health among recipients and their children. We exploit quasi-random variation in the size of EITC payments to examine the effects of income on perinatal health. ⋯ Our findings suggest that associations between income and perinatal health may be confounded by unobserved characteristics, but that EITC income improves perinatal health. Future studies should continue to explore the impacts of economic interventions on perinatal health outcomes, and investigate how different forms of income transfers may have different impacts.
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Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol · Sep 2015
Racial/Ethnic Differences in Gestational Diabetes Prevalence and Contribution of Common Risk Factors.
The White House, the American Heart Association, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute have all recently acknowledged the need to disaggregate Asian American subgroups to better understand this heterogeneous racial group. This study aims to assess racial/ethnic differences in relative contribution of risk factors of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) among Asian subgroups (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese), Hispanics, non-Hispanic blacks, and non-Hispanic whites. ⋯ Overweight/obesity, advanced maternal age, family history of type 2 diabetes, and foreign-borne status are important risk factors for GDM. The relative contributions of these risk factors differ by race/ethnicity, mainly due to differences in population prevalence of these risk factors.