Socioeconomic disparities in low birth weight outcomes according to maternal birthplace in Québec, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Studies in the USA suggest that the association between maternal birthplace, socioeconomic status (SES), and low birth weight (LBW) can vary across different immigrant groups. Less is known outside the USA about these associations. Our study assesses the association of maternal birthplace and SES on the likelihood of LBW infants in Québec, Canada. METHODS: Using 2000 Quebec birth registry data, logistic regression was used to examine differentials in LBW according to maternal birthplace and SES. Singleton infants born to Québec mothers (n=47,988) were grouped into nine regions based on maternal birthplace: (1) Canada; (2) the USA and western Europe; (3) eastern Europe; (4) Latin America; (5) the Caribbean; (6) Sub-Saharan Africa; (7) north Africa and Middle East; (8) South Asia; and (9) East Asia and Pacific. SES was classified into four categories according to maternal educational attainment: (1) low SES (<11 years); (2) medium-low SES (11-12 years); (3) medium-high SES (13-14 years); and (4) high SES (more than 14 years). Covariates included maternal age, gestational duration, and parity. LBW was defined as between 500 and 2499 g. RESULTS: Compared to a LBW prevalence of 4.5 for Canadian-born mothers, South Asian- and Caribbean-born mothers had prevalence percentages of 9.2 and 8.2, respectively. After adjusting for SES and other covariates, the likelihood (odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence intervals (CI)) of LBW outcomes remained greater for South Asian- (OR 2.84; 95% CI, 1.90-4.24) and Caribbean-born mothers (OR 1.52; 95% CI 1.11-2.10). After pooling these two groups and testing for moderation by SES, we found that high SES immigrant mothers (OR 3.82; 95% CI 2.33-6.25) had a higher likelihood of LBW infants than low SES mothers (OR 2.00; 95% CI 1.22-3.33) compared to high SES Canadian-born mothers. DISCUSSION: In Québec, the association between foreign-born status and LBW varies according to maternal birthplace.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".