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.

Journal 2

What is your topic? Or what are your key words thus far?


My topic is: race and birth outcomes.


Key words:

• African American woman
• disparities
• stress
• racism
• pregnancy

What is your research question? Have you decided to change it at all? And, if you have, how do I know that the way in which this question is formulated is appropriate to conduct a literature review with a systematic approach?


My research question is: "Does race effect birth outcomes?" No I have not decided to change my question.


And what are the definitions on which it depends?

• African American woman : This is the control group
• Disparities: Difference between each race
• Stress: A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. This would be regarding the pregnancy and racism
• Racism: Prejudice or discrimination. This would be regarding "just being black" and is a direct correlation with "stress"
• Pregnancy: Being pregnant.

What is your hierarchy of evidence? And how do I know you going about finding the most appropriate evidence/method for your research question?


My hierarchy of evidence would be the woman that have actually given birth and have had a pregnancy that resulted in a preterm or underweight baby. I will know the most appropriate evidence/method is right for my research question, is if the study has an appropriate amount of random AA woman they watched in comparison to another race.


How do I know that the remit of the method itself is selecting the research, rather than just you on a whim? + 1 thing you found interesting + how you imagine using the source.

    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

This article states how African American Woman have the highest possibility of having a pre term birth or low birth weight baby, that would eventually end up in the death of the baby. The article goes on to say that these outcomes are not related to health behaviors but more social factors like race and socio economic status. They used data from the National Center for Health Statistics to compare AA woman to other races.  This would be considered using grounded theory for this study.

    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

 
This article is interesting because they are trying to see the likelihood of birth control to be used on AA woman that have had birth outcomes that are not desirable. They used high risk AA woman from low-income neighborhoods. This would be a case control study. I am not sure I would use this article towards my research. This was interesting because instead of figuring out ways to reduce the likelihood of these woman having adverse birth outcomes they are trying to just prevent the 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


This article states that AA woman have a higher risk for infant mortality and preterm birth because of higher lifetime exposure to chronic stress. Racial discrimination would be a psychological stressor. This study could be an example of phermemology because discrimination would be an experience that the AA woman had in result to have the adverse birth outcomes.
 

  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

This study was approved by UCSF and used 40 AA woman from around California and compared the racism they endured throughout their life.  This cohort study can be used for my research because it showed that these AA woman developed lifelong effects from the racism. This would be in direct correlation to chronic stress and adverse birth outcomes.

5. Bryant, A. (2010). Racial/ethnic disparities in obstetric outcomes and care: Prevalence and determinants. Am J Obstet Gynecol, 202(4), 335-343. doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2009.10.864

Topic: African American Woman and birth outcomes

Article 1: Adverse Birth Outcomes in African American Women: The Social Context of Persistent Reproductive Disadvantage.
Results:
AA women have highest rate of

• Infant death
• Preterm birth
• Low birthweight

Method:
Looked into

• Racism
• Racial desparities 
• Stress

Result:

Being black is a genetic factor for higher risk pregnancies.  But for some reason black immigrant women have better outcomes. It was also learned that racial bias is institutuonlized and stress and racisim is linked, which causes the different birth outcomes.

**This article relates to my topic by showing evidence that AA woman face different outcomes when becoming pregnant.

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:10.1080/1091135090298688

Article 2:

Racial Disparities in Preterm Birth 

Results:

Culhane, J. F., & Goldenberg, R. L. (2011). Racial disparities in preterm birth. Seminars in Perinatology, 35(4), 234-239. doi:10.1053/j.semperi.2011.02.020