2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

Home Events & Meetings Annual Meeting Schedule & Program

Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

326303
Implication of Race-Specific Hispanic or Latino Infant Mortality for Health in All Policies


Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Robert Levine, MD, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Maria Mejia de Grubb, MD, MPH, Family and Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
LisaAnn Gittner, PhD, Department of Political Science-Public Administration, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
Barbara Kilbourne, PhD, Sociology, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN
Roger Zoorob, MD MPH FAAFP, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Background: Infant mortality has a strong correlation with more complex indicators, such as disability adjusted life expectancy, and has been identified as a reasonable indicator of population health.

Methods: We describe US Census-derived, race-specific (American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN); Asian or Pacific Islander (API); Black or African American (BAA); and White), Hispanic or Latino (HL) and non-Hispanic or Latino (non-HL) infant mortality (IM) using mortality per 100,000 population and 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) according to year, US Census Division (CD) and 2006 urbanization as presented on the publically available CDC WONDER internet web site. Rate comparisons were done with OpenEpi software.

Results: Among HL populations, the lowest IM occurred among AIAN(155.3(95% CI,143.3,167.6)) followed by API(293.6(273.2,314.1)), BAA(343.5(331.2,355.8)), and W(568.9(564.8,573)). Relative to corresponding non-HL populations, risk was significantly lower among AIAN (0.20 (0.18,0.22 p<0.0001)), BAA (0.26(0.25,0.27,p<0.0001)); and API(0.72(0.67,0.77,p<0.0001), but there was no statistically significant difference between HL and non-HL W (1.00, 0.99,1.01,p=0.57). Highest HL IM occurred in CD 8 for AIAN(286.3(249,323.5), BAA(628.5(555.8,701.2), and W(674(660.3,687.7)) and lowest HL IM occurred in CD 5 for AIAN(126.3(86.9,177.4) and W(519.2(508,530.3). AIAN and BAA rates were higher in more rural areas.

Conclusions:  Analytic epidemiologic studies designed a priori to elucidate race-ethnic-specific variations in capacity to overcome social and environmental barriers among HL populations could inform policy makers and peer community members about ways to maximize benefits associated with inclusion of health in all policies as well as reasons for relatively high risk among HL-W as contrasted with HL- AIAN, -API, and -BAA populations.

Learning Areas:

Diversity and culture
Epidemiology
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe race-specific Hispanic or Latino infant mortality in the United States, and discuss the implications for health in all policies.

Keyword(s): Infant Mortality, Latinos

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I obtained the data (from the public CDC web site), completed the analyses, critically evaluated the draft abstract. I have been working in the field of disparities research for about 20 years, focusing, in part, on the identification of populations showing evidence of resilience in overcoming social and/or environmental barriers to health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5013.0: Poster: Health disparities