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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Laura Chyu, MA, School of Public Health Department of Community Health Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South, Box 951772, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772, (310) 794-9391, lchyu@ucla.edu and Michael C. Lu, MD, MPH, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South, Box 951772, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772.

Objective: To examine the association between preterm delivery and maternal hypertension in later life.

Methods: This study uses a subsample of 2,032 women from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 who were at least 40 years of age and had at least one singleton birth. Women who had hypertensive disorders prior to or during a pregnancy that resulted in a preterm birth were excluded. The association between preterm birth (<37 weeks) and self-reported current hypertension was evaluated using bivariate and multivariate analyses. An event history analysis with multiple outcomes of giving birth, having a preterm birth, and being diagnosed with hypertension was conducted to examine the temporal aspect of women's life-course health trajectories.

Results: Almost one in six (16.16%) women with a history of preterm delivery report a current diagnosis of hypertension. Women who ever had a preterm birth were 1.54 times (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.10, 2.16) as likely to have hypertension as women who never had a preterm birth, after controlling for potential sociodemographic and behavioral confounders. There were no significant interaction effects of race and preterm birth on current hypertension.

Conclusion: Women with a history of preterm delivery are at increased risk for hypertension in later life. Further research is needed to elucidate the predisease pathways to hypertension that may have preterm delivery as an early manifestation.

Learning Objectives: Learning objectives

• Describe the association between preterm delivery and subsequent development of hypertension;
• Discuss the use of the event history analysis for longitudinal modeling;
• Explore the implications of our findings for MCH and women’s health research from a life-course perspective.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No