Racial Disparity in Low Birth Weight and Infant Mortality

Abstract

In the United States, African-American infants have significantly worse outcomes than white infants. In this review, the authors look beyond traditional risk factors and explore the social context of race in this country in an effort to understand African-American women's long-standing pregnancy outcome disadvantage. In the process, new insights are highlighted concerning likely causes for the poor birth outcomes of white infants in this country compared with infants in most other industrialized nations. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.