Friday, May 5, 2023 | The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Dear John,
This month, HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O'Connell will join us for a Policy Spotlight on May 17 to discuss disaster recovery and emergency preparedness. The event will be open to all. Register today.
Maternal Age Affects Inequities
As of 2016, more women in the US are bearing children in their thirties than their twenties.
Using vital statistics data from the period 1989–2019, Arline Geronimus and
colleagues simulated the effect that the distributional shift to older maternal ages at first birth had on health inequity between Black and White infants.
The authors find that the shift in the past two decades to later-age childbearing increases the relative odds that White and Black women give birth to very-low-birthweight infants by 10 percent and 19
percent, respectively, net of socioeconomic factors.
The rise in maternal age distribution at first birth, they conclude, "accounted for the growing Black-White inequity in infant mortality, despite technological advances that lowered infant mortality rates overall."
Geronimus and colleagues assert that new technologies have not been applied equitably across racial and ethnic or socioeconomic groups. Read more about their findings in the May issue of Health Affairs.
Sabrina Corlette argues that the data files for price transparency can be improved and better utilized to help constrain health care cost growth and improve affordability for state residents.
Health Affairs is launching a contest! The premise is simple. Finish the statement "You’re A Health Policy Wonk If…"
We'll share some of the submissions on Forefront in July, and the first-place winner of the contest will receive a Health Affairs tumbler and a free Unlimited membership for a year. Submit by May 31.
About Health Affairs
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking
content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
