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.