TY  - JOUR
A1  - Green, Tiffany
A1  - Hamilton, Tod
T1  - Maternal educational attainment and infant mortality in the United States: Does the gradient vary by race/ethnicity and nativity?
Y1  - 2019/09/11
JF  - Demographic Research
JO  - Demographic Research
SN  - 1435-9871
SP  - 713
EP  - 752
DO  - 10.4054/DemRes.2019.41.25
VL  - 41
IS  - 25
UR  - https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/25/
L1  - https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/25/41-25.pdf
L2  - https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/25/41-25.pdf
L3  - https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/25/files/readme.41-25.txt
L3  - https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol41/25/files/demographic-research.41-25.zip
N2  - Background: Maternal education-infant health gradients are flatter among foreign-born mothers than U.S.-born mothers; However, because common metrics of infant health are less predictive of infant mortality for some racial/ethnic and nativity groups, further study of maternal education-infant mortality gradients is necessary. 

Objective: We investigate whether maternal education–infant mortality gradients vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among infants born to mothers in the United States. 

Methods: We use data from the 1998‒2002 National Vital Statistics Birth Cohort Linked Birth/Infant Death Data published by the National Center for Health Statistics (N = 17,520,140) to estimate logistic regression models predicting infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality by race/ethnicity and nativity. 

Results: The negative associations between maternal education and infant mortality are stronger for US-born mothers than foreign-born mothers. Among both groups, Non-Hispanic whites have the highest returns to education and Non-Hispanic blacks have the lowest returns. While foreign-born mothers are less likely to have an infant die than their native-born counterparts, this advantage is largest at the lowest levels of education and converges at the highest levels of education . For most racial/ethnic groups, the maternal education–infant mortality gradient is steeper during the postneonatal period than during the neonatal period. 

Conclusions: The maternal education–infant mortality gradient varies substantially by the timing of infant death, race/ethnicity, and nativity. 

Contribution: This study extends the literature on nativity disparities in infant health by documenting how the maternal education-infant mortality gradient varies by nativity within racial/ethnic groups. To our knowledge, this is the first study to produce these estimates. 

ER  -