Socioeconomic status and preterm birth: New Zealand trends, 1980 to 1999

Effects of individual and social factors on preterm birth and low birth weight: empirical evidence from regional data in Italy

“…Women from outside Europe, particularly those from a developing country, show an increase in intrauterine growth, justifying a significant higher probability of VLBW greater than Europeans. One of the relevant research questions is whether socioeconomic deprivation affects preterm birth (Galobardes et al 2007;Fairley and Leyland 2006;Craig et al 2002). The results confirm that the deprivation index does not affect the outcome.…”

Increasing educational inequality in preterm birth in Quebec, Canada, 1981-2006

“…A study of area-based patterns found that differentials in PTB (very, extreme, moderate) between the most and least deprived areas of New Zealand decreased from 1980 to 1999, which was ascribed to relatively greater increases in the frequency of PTB in affluent areas 16. Because our results showed that individual educational inequalities increased even when the educational distribution of the first study period was used in later periods, changing socio-demographic patterns cannot account for our findings.…”

Explaining educational inequalities in preterm birth: the generation r study

“…Research on socioeconomic inequalities in birth outcome across different industrialised countries has indicated that low educational level, low occupational status, and high deprivation scores are associated with an increased risk of preterm birth 4 – 10. Only few studies found no relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and preterm birth 11 12. Despite the abundance of studies describing SES inequalities in preterm birth, little research has evaluated the pathways through which socioeconomic disadvantage influences preterm birth: either no possible explanatory variables were taken into account8 – 10 or only a few, such as age, height, and smoking habits of pregnant women 4 – 6.…”