Socioeconomic improvement for poor women has little effect on risk of delivering low-birthweight infants among blacks

Oct 5 2006

Although improvement of socioeconomic status for poor women might reduce a white woman's risk of delivering a low-birthweight infant by nearly 50%, such upward mobility seems to have little effect for black women with similar socioeconomic status, according to a study published in the Oct. 3 online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, CQ HealthBeat reports (Crowley, CQ HealthBeat, 10/4).

Cynthia Colen, a researcher at Columbia University, and colleagues looked at the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and the 1970 U.S. Census and analyzed the records of women who at age 14 were living in households with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level.

The study finds that for every one unit increase in the "natural logarithm of adult family income" for white women, the risk of delivering a low-birthweight infant decreased by 48%, after adjusting for other factors.

The risk of delivering a low-birthweight infant also decreased with increases in the logarithm for black women, but the decrease is not statistically significant, according to the study (Colen et al., American Journal of Public Health, 10/3).

According to an AJPH release, the study also finds that black women's risk of delivering a low-birthweight infant was reduced by 53% if a grandmother is present in the household.

Although 47% of poor black women involved in the study had a grandmother in residence, only 18% of "upwardly mobile" black women did.

The study's finding indicate that for black women, the "presence of certain key family members has an independent impact on birthweight above and beyond the provision of financial resources," the researchers wrote (AJPH release, 10/3).

Colen said that black women often are not able to move to a "better neighborhood with lower rates of crime, less pollution and improved access to medical services" despite having the financial means to do so -- a challenge related to "segregation" that white women might not encounter (Norton, Reuters Health, 10/3).

According to Cohen, these challenges "can create additional stress for black women and ultimately affect the health of their infants" (AJPH release, 10/3). She added, "What I am not saying is that there is no benefit to upward mobility.

[But] the health effects that we typically think of as associated with upward mobility and improved social class might be muted for African Americans" (CQ HealthBeat, 10/4).