Gailey Samantha, Bruckner Tim, Badran Rania, Singh Parvati
From the Department of Forestry, CS Mott Department of Public Health, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.
Department of Health, Society, and Behavior, Center for Population, Inequality, and Policy, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA.
Epidemiology. 2025 Jul 1;36(4):541-550. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001865. Epub 2025 Apr 8.
Payday loans refer to high-interest, short-term loans. These loans can provide immediate financial relief for individuals with limited access to traditional credit. However, the predatory nature of payday loans may portend increased financial strain and adverse public health consequences.
We examine whether state-level temporal variation in payday loan restrictions over a 20-year period (2000-2019) corresponds with a reduction in preterm births: a leading cause of infant mortality in the United States (US). Between 2000 and 2019, 10 US states and the District of Columbia imposed restrictions on payday lending at varied time points. We use data on preterm births provided by the Centers of Disease Control's WONDER database (2000-2019) and apply staggered difference-in-difference approaches to examine whether preterm births (per 100 live births) declined among states that imposed payday lending restrictions, relative to states that never imposed restrictions. We also control for state-specific time propensity of preterm births, derived through time-series analysis.
Results indicate a decline in the preterm births by approximately 0.22 per 100 live births (95% confidence interval: -0.31, -0.13) within the first 3 years of payday loan restrictions, which corresponds to 4512 fewer than expected preterm births.
Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that state-level payday lending restrictionsare associated with a reduction in preterm births.
发薪日贷款是指高利息的短期贷款。这些贷款可以为难以获得传统信贷的个人提供即时的经济缓解。然而，发薪日贷款的掠夺性本质可能预示着财务压力增加和不良的公共卫生后果。
我们研究了20年期间（2000 - 2019年）各州发薪日贷款限制的时间变化是否与早产率的降低相对应：早产是美国婴儿死亡的主要原因。2000年至2019年期间，美国10个州和哥伦比亚特区在不同时间点对发薪日贷款实施了限制。我们使用疾病控制中心的WONDER数据库（2000 - 2019年）提供的早产数据，并应用交错差分法来检验实施发薪日贷款限制的州的早产率（每100例活产）相对于从未实施限制的州是否下降。我们还控制了通过时间序列分析得出的各州早产的特定时间倾向。
结果表明，在发薪日贷款限制的前3年内，早产率每100例活产下降了约0.22例（95%置信区间：-0.31，-0.13），这相当于比预期少了4512例早产。
我们的研究结果与州级发薪日贷款限制与早产率降低相关的假设一致。
