presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JAyiPuUbEFFMKouVFQ4LHS-ThbHmfgkigyQ6bb5uML4/edit?usp=sharing

final review/ writing center visits

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kro17sGqzjgm3oOmLuIsMAtkRqBYju-sSa6WbFGCiRs/edit?usp=sharing

abstract

Introduction: In regards to public health it has been shown that African American Women are more prone to adverse birth outcomes due to chronic stress caused by racism. This birth outcome unfortunately does not change even with socio economic status.

Methods: Using 10 peer reviewed articles that justified why African American Women had preterm birth, low birth weight infants, or infant mortality.

Results: This showed how chronic stress from racism throughout a African American women's life affected her birth. The articles also argued why just being “black” had a lasting effect generationally involving birth outcomes as well.  

Discussion: Adverse birth outcomes go hand in hand with racism, stress and the simple fact of just being born a minority in this country in particular.  This is a multi generational phenomenon that can not be avoided regrettably, as long as your offspring are born in the United States.  

Conclusion: Unfortunately there are people in the world that do not believe that there is racism in this country anymore.  They believe that all black people get the same outcomes as their counterparts.  As it is seen here, this is not true.  It doesn’t matter if the black woman makes the same six figures as her counterpart she will still succumb to and adverse birth outcome.  She could go to all the best doctors and still be behind the curve.  

Key Words: African American woman, birth outcomes, stress, racism

intro/discussion/conclusion

Introduction

This literature review’s  purpose was to answer the question: Why do African American Women have health disparities in relation to birth outcomes?  The literature review’s that incorporated this question, and the specific key terms opened up the discussion of chronic stress and racism.  Being black and pregnant subsequently gave women two strikes against them from the begin.  

African American women for years have had the most negative birth outcomes compared to their counterparts.  They have succumbed to preterm labor, low birth weight, and high infant mortality. Because of the question, what are the reasons for this?  It has been determined that stress, racial discrimination and even the location of your residence can give an African American woman an adverse birth outcome no matter their socioeconomic status.

In order to fill in the gap, the community needs to become aware of how racism throughout a minorities life can cause chronic stress and in return affect their pregnancy in a negative way.  African American Women can become more aware of the reasoning behind their preterm births and low birth weight infants.  They should realize this is a generational aspect that can not be avoided as long as racism impacts them and their children personally.  

Discussion

It was discovered that adverse birth outcomes go hand in hand with racism, stress and the simple fact of just being born a minority in this country in particular.  This is a multi generational phenomenon that can not be avoided regrettably, as long as your offspring are born in the United States.    

Conclusion

Unfortunately there are people in the world that do not believe that there is racism in this country anymore.  They believe that all black individuals get the same fair outcomes as their counterparts.  As it is seen here, this is not true.  It doesn’t matter if the black woman makes the same six figures as her counterpart, she will still succumb to and adverse birth outcome, whether it be a genetic factor or not.  She could go to all the best doctors and still be behind the curve because of psychosocial stress due to racism beginning from childhood.  

3/4 annotations

methods

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FR2lcMk17ewOM1wdNXMRzU5NFM17lXZVxE1Sky4viqc/edit?usp=sharing

ch 1/2 annotations

Results section

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kro17sGqzjgm3oOmLuIsMAtkRqBYju-sSa6WbFGCiRs/edit?usp=sharing

synthesis proposal

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V_1anvn1WlPhRf-NTVy1newHGDKOW9X9HeBjmYjoVMA/edit?usp=sharing

matrix 6-10

Synthesis Matrix/Critical Appraisal

 

Author/Date	Aim of Study	Type of literature + type of method	Result /Conclusion	Strengths + limitations	Thematic codings	Setting/ Context

 

Matrix 1-5

Synthesis Matrix/Critical Appraisal

 

Author/Date	Aim of Study	Type of literature + type of method	Result /Conclusion	Strengths + limitations	Thematic codings	Setting/ Context

 

 

Journal 3

1. Dominguez, T. P., Dunkel-Schetter, C., Glynn, L. M., Hobel, C., & Sandman, C. A. (2008). Racial differences in birth outcomes: The role of general, pregnancy, and racism stress. Health Psychology, 27(2), 194-203. doi:http://dx.doi.org.unr.idm.oclc.org/10.1037/0278-6133.27.2.194



2.Collins, J. W., David, R. J., Handler, A., Wall, S., & Andes, S. (2004). Very Low Birthweight in African American Infants: The Role of Maternal Exposure to Interpersonal Racial Discrimination. American Journal of Public Health, 94(12), 2132–2138.


3. Earnshaw, V. A., Rosenthal, L., Lewis, J. B., Stasko, E. C., Tobin, J. N., Lewis, T. T., . . . Ickovics, J. R. (2013). Maternal experiences with everyday discrimination and infant birth weight: A test of mediators and moderators among young, urban women of color. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 45(1), 13-23. doi:10.1007/s12160-012-9404-3

4. Bell, J. F., Zimmerman, F. J., Almgren, G. R., Mayer, J. D., & Huebner, C. E. (2006). Birth outcomes among urban african-american women: A multilevel analysis of the role of racial residential segregation. Social Science & Medicine, 63(12), 3030-3045. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.011
 

5.Rosenthal, L., & Lobel, M. (2011). Explaining racial disparities in adverse birth outcomes: Unique sources of stress for black american women. Social Science & Medicine, 72(6), 977-983. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.01.013

• ?

In class work 2/6-2/8

 1. Dominguez, T. P. (2010;2011;). Adverse birth outcomes in african american women: The social context of persistent reproductive disadvantage. Social Work in Public Health, 26(1), 3-16. doi:10.1080/10911350902986880

• grounded theory
• The authors use this method by studying the trend of adverse births in AA woman according to National Vital Statistics reports. This method was able to prove that AA woman are more likely to have a pre term, underweight, or a infant mortality. I'm sure they chose this method because they needed actual evidence of a trend of adverse births.  This could be used if they needed the statistics right away instead of conducting their own research.
• In conclusion the study finds that racism plays a big role in the U.S. and is unavoidable.  Until people start recognizing that racism plays a role in one's health, economic status, education, employment and etc. then things will not change.  They hope that this study and other's will raise public awareness. Because they compared all the data  
• What was interesting about this study was how much of a difference your race was when it came to your birth compared to other woman.

2.Lind, C. E., Godfrey, E. M., Rankin, K. M., & Handler, A. S. (2014). Likelihood    of emergency contraception use among african-american women at risk of adverse  birth outcomes. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 18(5), 1190-1195. doi:10.1007/s10995-013-1349-z

• case control
• The authors use this method by collecting low-income AA woman that had an adverse birth outcome. Then they would see the likelihood they would use birth control to prevent further "high risk" pregnancies. They chose this method because this would be the only way to find out what groups would actually use the birth control.
• The conclusion of the study was that over 90% of the 131 woman didn't know if they wanted to get pregnant or did not want to get pregnant in the next 2 years. Of the 90% they had a 4.4 times higher chance to actually be willing to use birth control.
• What was interesting was that this study didn't focus on ways to help these AA woman from having high risk pregnancies but only focused on ways to prevent pregnancy.

3     Giurgescu, C., McFarlin, B., Lomax, J., Craddock, C., & Albrecht, A. (2011). Racial discrimination and the black-white gap in adverse birth outcomes: A review. Journal of Midwifery & Womens Health, 56(4), 362-370. doi:10.1111/j.1542-2011.2011.00034.x
   

• case control
• This study was here to show that acute stress can cause long term effects to an individuals birth.  They used the information from 3 databases to build their study; Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO. All these studies showed the different kinds of racism and individual endured through out their lifespan and if they had a low birth weight, preterm labor or infant death later on in life.
• In conclusion they found that there was a consistent correlation between racism and chronic stress that lead to preterm birth, low birth weight and very low birth weight babies. There was no relationship between racism and gestational age at birth.
• What I found interesting was how racism is linked to preterm birth but not gestational age. So I am assuming they mean that racism can lead an AA woman to give birth early but they don't know how early or late.

4.Nuru-Jeter, A., Dominguez, T., Hammond, W., Leu, J., Skaff, M., Egerter, S., . . . Braveman, P. (2009). "it's the skin you're in": African-american women talk about their experiences of racism. an exploratory study to develop measures of racism for birth outcome studies. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 13(1), 29-39. doi:10.1007/s10995-008-0357-x

• phenomenology
• This study had 6 groups of 5-10 woman. Each group was interviewed to measure the racism that they endured. I believe they chose this kind of study to show that this group of AA woman actually faced racism.  They then used that information to compare it to their birth outcomes.
• In conclusion this study showed that these woman have experienced or have seen racism toward their friends or family at one point or another.
• What I found interesting was that I didn't know racism effected so many woman for so long in different ways.  It can be internalized, interpersonal or institutional. Any racism I have ever held with me happened as a child, or I have fear for my children. Especially having a black son and the stigma that comes with that.