Skip Navigation


American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on January 29, 2009
American Journal of Epidemiology 2009 169(6):712-717; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn402
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
169/6/712    most recent
kwn402v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Collins, J. W.
Right arrow Articles by Desireddi, J. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Collins, J. W., Jr
Right arrow Articles by Desireddi, J. R.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2009. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Transgenerational Effect of Neighborhood Poverty on Low Birth Weight Among African Americans in Cook County, Illinois

James W. Collins, Jr, Richard J. David, Kristin M. Rankin and Jennifer R. Desireddi

Correspondence to Dr. James W. Collins, Division of Neonatology, #45, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL 60614 (e-mail: jcollins{at}northwestern.edu).

Received for publication July 21, 2008. Accepted for publication December 5, 2008.

In perinatal epidemiology, transgenerational risk factors are defined as conditions experienced by one generation that affect the pregnancy outcomes of the next generation. The authors investigated the transgenerational effect of neighborhood poverty on infant birth weight among African Americans. Stratified and multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed on an Illinois transgenerational data set with appended US Census income information. Singleton African-American infants (n = 40,648) born in 1989–1991 were considered index births. The mothers of index infants had been born in 1956–1976. The maternal grandmothers of index infants were identified. Rates of infant low birth weight (<2,500 g) rose as maternal grandmother's residential environment during her pregnancy deteriorated, independently of mother's residential environment during her pregnancy. In a multilevel logistic regression model that accounted for clustering by maternal grandmother's residential environment, the adjusted odds ratio (controlling for mother's age, education, prenatal care, cigarette smoking status, and residential environment) for infant low birth weight for maternal grandmother's residence in a poor neighborhood (compared with an affluent neighborhood) equaled 1.3 (95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.4). This study suggests that maternal grandmother's exposure to neighborhood poverty during her pregnancy is a risk factor for infant low birth weight among African Americans.

African Americans; health status disparities; infant, low birth weight; poverty; residence characteristics; risk factors

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; ICC, intraclass correlation coefficient


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.