#11388. The geography of ethnoracial low birth weight inequalities in the United States

August 2026publication date
Proposal available till 17-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Sociology
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
2350 $1200 $1050 $900 $
Contract11388.1 Contract11388.2 Contract11388.3 Contract11388.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

More details about the manuscript: Science Citation Index Expanded or/and Social Sciences Citation Index
Abstract:
In this article, we describe, decompose, and examine correlates of the geography of ethnoracial inequalities in low birth weight (LBW). Drawing on the population of singleton births to White, Black, Latinx, and Native American parents in the first decade of the twenty-first century (N = 28.2 million births), we calculate county-level LBW rates and rate ratios. Results demonstrate a stark racial hierarchy in which Black infants experience the most significant disadvantage, but we also document substantial local-level variation organized in what we call a regionalized patchwork of inequality, with high-disparity counties bordering low-disparity counties coupled with regional clustering. Further, LBW rates for groups of color are only weakly to moderately correlated with Whites LBW rates, indicating that the same contexts can produce racially divergent health outcomes. Examining contextual factors that predict LBW disparities, we find that more segregated, socioeconomically unequal, and urban counties have larger LBW disparities. We conclude by positing an approach to health disparities that conceptualizes ethnoracial differences in health as fundamentally relational and spatial phenomena produced by systems of White advantage.
Keywords:
Ethnoracial inequality; Infant health; Low birth weight

Contacts :
0