Article
Racial/ethnic minority segregation and low birth weight in five North American cities
Ethnicity & Health
(2018)
Abstract
Comparisons of communities across cities are rare in social
epidemiology. Our prior work exploring racial/ethnic segregation
and the prevalence of low birth weight (LBW) in communities
from two large urban cities showed a strong relationship in
Chicago and a very weak relationship in Toronto. This study
extends that work by examining the association between racial/
ethnic minority segregation and LBW in total of 307 communities
in five North American cities: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago,
Philadelphia, and Toronto. We used Pearson correlation
coefficients and OLS regression models to examine potential
variability in the association between racial/ethnic minority
segregation and LBW, controlling for community-level
unemployment. In a combined model with community-level data
from all cities, a 10% increase in minority composition is
associated with a 0.7% increase in LBW. While racial/ethnic
minority segregation and unemployment are not associated with
LBW in Toronto, these social determinants have strong and
significant associations with LBW across communities in the four
US cities in the analysis. Subsequent models revealed opposite
effects for percentage non-Hispanic Black and percentage
Hispanic. Across communities in the US cities in this analysis,
there is considerable similarity in the strength of the effect of
racial/ethnic segregation on LBW. Future work should incorporate
communities from additional cities, looking to identify community
assets and public policies that allow some minority communities
to thrive, while other minority communities suffer from a high
prevalence of LBW. More work is also needed on the
generalizability of these patterns to other health outcomes.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2018.1492706
Citation Information
Fernando De Maio, David Ansell and Raj C. Shah. "Racial/ethnic minority segregation and low birth weight in five North American cities" Ethnicity & Health (2018) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/fdemaio/38/