Abstract
Background The relationship between African-American women's upward economic mobility and small for gestational age (weight for gestational < 10th percentile, sga) rates is incompletely understood. objective to ascertain the extent to which african-american women's upward economic mobility from early-life impoverishment is coupled with reduced sga rates. methods stratified and multilevel logistic regression analyses were completed on the illinois transgenerational dataset of african-american infants (1989-1991) and their chicago-born mothers (1956-1976) with linked u.s. census income information. results impoverished-born (defined as lowest quartile of neighborhood income distribution) african-american women (n =" 4891)" who remained impoverished by the time of delivery had a sga rate of 19.7%. individuals who achieved low (n =" 5827)," modest (n =" 2254)," or high (n =" 732)" upward economic mobility by adulthood had lower sga rates of 17.2, 14.8, and 13.7%, respectively; rr =" 0.9" (0.8-0.9), 0.8 (0.7-0.8), and 0.7 (0.6-0.8), respectively. in adjusted (controlling for traditional individual-level risk factors) multilevel regression models, there was a decreasing linear trend in sga rates with increasing levels of upward economic mobility; the adjusted rr of sga birth for impoverished-born african-american women who experienced low, modest, of high (compared to no) upward mobility equaled 0.95 (0.91, 0.99), 0.90 (0.83, 0.98), and 0.86 (0.75, 0.98), respectively, p >< 0.05. conclusions african-american women's upward economic mobility from early-life residence in poor urban communities is associated with lower sga rates independent of adulthood risk status.>
