Lillian Heydenburg
Research Mentor: Dr. Nikhil Parekh
Mentor Department: Wayne State University, NonUM
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 6 (3:00 PM – 3:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Abstract
Preterm birth is a leading contributor to infant mortality and morbidity. Black mothers have consistently higher preterm birth rates in comparison to their White counterparts. The “weathering hypothesis†states that racial stress contributes to this statistic. Maternal aging is also known to exacerbate preterm births. This study aims to determine whether maternal age is associated with the magnitude of Black–White differences in preterm birth across the United States. The CDC WONDER Natality dataset was used. R programming facilitated the tests performed (tidyverse for data manipulation and ggplot2 for visualization). The percentage of preterm births in Black maternal populations was compared to that of White maternal populations. It was found that the Black–White difference in preterm births increased with maternal age. Linear regression was used to determine the validity of this finding. A significant increasing relationship was proven (ß = 0.51, p = 0.025, R2 = 0.75). These findings are consistent with the weathering hypothesis and could indicate that the amplification seen is possibly due to endured racial stress among Black mothers. Implications of this study include that maternal age and race should be considered in targeted interventions for preterm birth prevention. Future studies could incorporate socio-economic, prenatal care, and health behavior data to further investigate potential mediators.
