Curtis David S, Smith Ken R, Chae David H, Washburn Tessa, Lee Hedwig, Kim Jaewhan, Kramer Michael R
Department of Family and Consumer Studies, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA.
SSM Popul Health. 2022 May 1;18:101112. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2022.101112. eCollection 2022 Jun.
Highly public anti-Black violence may increase preterm birth in the general population of pregnant women via stress-mediated paths, particularly Black women exposed in early gestation. To examine spillover from racial violence in the US, we included a total of 49 high publicity incidents of the following types: police lethal force toward Black persons, legal decisions not to indict/convict officers involved, and hate crime murders of Black victims. National search interest in these incidents was measured via Google Trends to proxy for public awareness of racial violence. Timing of racial violence was coded in relation to a three-month preconception period and subsequent pregnancy trimesters, with the primary hypothesis being that first trimester exposure is associated with higher preterm birth odds. The national sample included 1.6 million singleton live births to US-born Black mothers and 6.6 million births to US-born White mothers from 2014 to 2017. Using a preregistered analysis plan, findings show that Black mothers had 5% higher preterm birth odds when exposed to any high publicity racial incidents relative to none in their first trimester, and 2-3% higher preterm birth odds with each log increase in national interest. However, post hoc sensitivity tests that included month fixed effects attenuated these associations to null. For White mothers, associations were smaller but of a similar pattern, and were attenuated when including month fixed effects. Highly public anti-Black violence may act as a national stressor, yet whether racial violence is associated with reproductive outcomes in the population is unknown and merits further research.
高度公开的反黑人暴力可能会通过压力介导的途径增加普通孕妇群体的早产率，尤其是在妊娠早期暴露于此的黑人女性。为了研究美国种族暴力的溢出效应，我们总共纳入了49起以下类型的高度公开事件：警察对黑人使用致命武力、对涉案警察不起诉/定罪的法律决定以及针对黑人受害者的仇恨犯罪谋杀案。通过谷歌趋势测量了全国对这些事件的搜索兴趣，以此来代表公众对种族暴力的认知。种族暴力的时间根据受孕前三个月及随后的孕期进行编码，主要假设是孕早期暴露与更高的早产几率相关。全国样本包括2014年至2017年美国出生的黑人母亲的160万例单胎活产和美国出生的白人母亲的660万例分娩。使用预先注册的分析计划，研究结果表明，与孕早期未暴露于任何高度公开的种族事件相比，黑人母亲在孕早期暴露于任何此类事件时早产几率高5%，全国关注度每增加一个对数单位，早产几率高2%-3%。然而，包括月份固定效应的事后敏感性测试使这些关联减弱至无效。对于白人母亲，关联较小但模式相似，纳入月份固定效应时也会减弱。高度公开的反黑人暴力可能是一种全国性的压力源，但种族暴力是否与人群中的生殖结果相关尚不清楚，值得进一步研究。
