Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #119469

Lynne C. Messer, PhD, School of Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB #7435, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, 919-843-9472, lmesser@email.unc.edu, Jay Kaufman, PhD, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, CB # 7435, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7435, Barbara A. Laraia, PhD, MPH, RD, Department of Nutrition, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Population Center, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8120, and Lisa C. Vinikoor, Department of Epidemiology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB # 7435, School of Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC 27599.

To date much of the neighborhood contextual research has focused on macro-level risk factors associated with negative health outcomes. This presentation will focus on issues of neighborhood and individual resiliency and the identification of supportive factors contributing to healthy pregnancies. Specific attention will be paid to the pregnancy outcomes of birth weight and preterm birth. Individual-level data will be drawn from birth certificates and neighborhood-level data from the Census and other administrative data sources. Important supportive neighborhood-level factors will be identified through an exploratory process of examination comparing discordant neighborhoods; areas where known neighborhood risk factors would suggest high rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes yet actual data shows otherwise. Multilevel modeling techniques will be used to explore the relationship of the identified supportive neighborhood characteristics to outcomes of interest while simultaneously controlling for known measurable individual level risk and protective factors. Data will be drawn from the Multilevel Modeling of Disparities Explaining Preterm Delivery (MODE-PTD) project which is an MCHB-funded collaborative partnership between four universities and their government health departments with the purpose of studying contextual level influences on birth outcomes. The eight study sites include three urban centers (Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Baltimore City Maryland and 16 combined cities in Michigan), three economically and racially heterogeneous Maryland suburban counties near urban areas and two urban counties in North Carolina. Results from the eight study sites presented and discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• After the session the listener will be able to identify supportive neighborhood characteristics related to birth outcomes, such as birth weight and preterm delivery.

Keywords: , Birth Outcomes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.