Ethnicity and sources of prenatal care: findings from a national survey

Improving pregnancy outcomes for minorities is a major goal of health providers and policy makers. Since most strategies involve an intervention during pregnancy, it is important to know where minority women with various characteristics receive prenatal care and why. Our purpose was to evaluate services of prenatal care for white, African-American, Mexican-American, and Puerto Rican women.

The National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (1988) was used to ascertain age, income, marital status, education level, and source of funding of the study population of 21,000 women, who were assigned to an ethnic group based on self-indentification in the survey. The sources of prenatal care were classified as private (private physician, nurse-midwife, health maintenance organization) or public (state or local health department, community health center, hospital-based clinic).

When categorized by ethnic group alone, 78 percent of white women received private care compared with 51 percent of Mexican-American women, 44 percent of African-American women, and 37 percent of Puerto Rican women. Private health insurance was held by 78 percent of white, 50 percent of African-American, 49 percent of Mexican-American, and 47 percent of Puerto Rican women. Of those with private insurance, 86, 62, 69, and 59 percent, respectively, received private care. Of white women with Medicaid funding, 52 percent received private care as opposed to a range of 20 to 42 percent for minority women.

Substantial differences in sources of prenatal care exist between white and minority women and between different minority groups, suggesting that policy makers and health caregivers should tailor prenatal care intervention to the needs of specific minority populations.