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A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting
14:43

A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting

Published on: January 12, 2018

Is prenatal care really ineffective? Or, is the 'devil' in the distribution?

Karen Smith Conway1, Partha Deb

  • 1Department of Economics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, 03824, USA.

Journal of Health Economics
|April 7, 2005
PubMed

Prenatal care should improve infant health, yet research frequently finds only weak effects. If there are two kinds of pregnancies, 'complicated' and 'normal' ones, then combining these pregnancies may lead prenatal care to appear ineffective. Data from the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) offers compelling evidence. The standard 2SLS approach yields obviously bimodal residuals and frequently insignificant prenatal care coefficients. In contrast, estimating birth weights with a finite mixture model yields estimates revealing that prenatal care has a substantial effect on 'normal' pregnancies. Our Monte Carlo experiment confirms that ignoring even a small proportion of 'complicated' pregnancies can lead prenatal care to appear unimportant.

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