Paternal race/ethnicity and birth outcomes.
1Pardee Rand Graduate School, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. sma@jhsph.edu
American Journal of Public Health
|May 1, 2008
Summary
Paternal race/ethnicity has a smaller impact on infant birth outcomes than maternal race/ethnicity. Non-racial factors and unreported paternal information significantly influence disparities in infant health.
Area of Science:
- Reproductive Health
- Perinatal Epidemiology
- Sociodemographic Factors in Health
Background:
- Maternal race/ethnicity is often used as a proxy for infant race/ethnicity in research.
- Existing research may overlook the independent contributions of paternal race/ethnicity to birth outcomes.
- Understanding the interplay of parental race/ethnicity is crucial for addressing health disparities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between paternal race/ethnicity and infant birth outcomes.
- To compare outcomes among infants of same-race/ethnicity parents versus mixed-race/ethnicity parents.
- To determine if disparities attributed to race/ethnicity are confounded by other parental characteristics.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the 2001 National Center for Health Statistics linked birth and infant death file.
- Employed propensity score matching and weighting to control for confounding variables.
- Analyzed birth outcomes stratified by maternal race/ethnicity and paternal race/ethnicity.
Main Results:
- Significant variations in birth outcomes were observed based on paternal race/ethnicity among infants with White mothers.
- Propensity score weighting indicated that non-racial parental characteristics largely explained racial/ethnic disparities.
- Infants with unreported paternal race/ethnicity exhibited the poorest birth outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Relying solely on maternal race/ethnicity to represent infant race/ethnicity in research is methodologically flawed.
- Maternal race/ethnicity demonstrated a larger estimated effect on birth outcomes compared to paternal race/ethnicity after covariate adjustment.
- Unreported paternal information on birth certificates is a potential source of bias and a marker for identifying at-risk infants.
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