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Institute
Hintergrund: Der Wohnort kann eine Dimension sozialer Ungleichheiten darstellen, und es gibt Hinweise dafür, dass sich dieser bereits auf die perinatale Entwicklung auswirken könnte. Die zugrunde liegenden Wirkmechanismen sind nach wie vor unbekannt; theorie-basierte und hypothesengeleitete Analysen fehlen. Um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, untersucht diese Studie, inwieweit kleinräumige Merkmale zu einem niedrigen Geburtsgewicht beitragen, unabhängig von individuellen Merkmalen. Auf der Grundlage eines konzeptionellen Modells1 wurden kleinräumige Merkmale ausgewählt, erhoben und deren Auswirkungen auf niedriges Geburtsgewicht analysiert.
Methoden: Die Individualdaten stammen aus der Geburtskohortenstudie „Gesundheit von Babys und Kindern in Bielefeld“.
Die Stichprobe besteht aus 958 Frauen und ihren Säuglingen, verteilt auf 80 statistische Bezirke in Bielefeld. Kleinräumige Daten wurden anhand von lokalen Lärmkarten, dem Emissionskataster, Google Street View und dem Melderegister erhoben.
Zur Quantifizierung des Einflusses kleinräumiger Merkmale wurde eine lineare Mehrebenenanalyse mit einer Zwei-Ebenen-Struktur (Individuen, die in statistische Bezirke eingebettet sind) durchgeführt.
Ergebnisse: Insgesamt sind die Auswirkungen der ausgewählten kleinräumigen Merkmale gering bis nicht existent, es zeigen sich keine signifikanten Effekten für niedriges Geburtsgewicht. Tendenziell weisen Neugeborene aus ästhetisch weniger ansprechenden und subjektiv unsicher wahrgenommenen Stadtteilen einen höheren Anteil an niedrigem Geburtsgewicht auf.
Schlussfolgerungen: Die Analyse liefert keine eindeutigen Hinweise auf negative Auswirkungen kleinräumiger Faktoren auf ein niedriges Geburtsgewicht. Auf methodischer Seite bestätigt die Studie, dass ein angemessener Stichprobenumfang, eine zuverlässige Expositionsabschätzung und die Operationalisierung des kleinräumigen Kontextes mit Blick auf die verfügbaren Daten die zentralen Herausforderungen des Forschungsfeldes darstellen.
Objectives:
Mothers of young children have been identified as a particularly vulnerable group during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to explore how occupational, psychosocial and partnership-related factors were associated with their self-reported mental well-being during the first COVID-19 wave.
Methods:
Five hundred fifty participants of the BaBi cohort study (est. 2013, Bielefeld, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany) were invited to complete an online survey and to take part in email interviews (April–May 2020). With survey data, we assessed self-reported mental well-being through validated instruments (eight-item Patient Health Questionnaire; short version of the Symptom Checklist) and ran linear regression models for occupational, psychosocial and partnership-related factors. We performed content analysis on the interviews’ data to further understand the determinants of the women’s mental well-being.
Results:
One hundred twenty-four women participated in the survey; of which 17 also participated in the interviews. A perceived lack of support in childcare was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, while having a higher internal locus of control was associated with lower levels. Psychological distress was higher in those reporting lack of emotional or childcare support. Interviews confirmed the interplay of potential stressors and highlighted the difficulties to reconcile different expectations of motherhood.
Discussion:
Occupational, psychosocial and partner-related factors can act (to varying degree) both as resources and stressors to the self-reported mental well-being of mothers of young children. These impacts took different forms and created opportunities or challenges, depending on specific life circumstances, such as work or family situations, relationships and own psychosocial resources. Although not representative, our study contributes to building the COVID-19 evidence base, delineating the mental health toll of the pandemic on mothers of young children and the factors that contribute to it.
Background: Measuring the phenomenon of violation of birth integrity (vBI) (e.g., obstetric violence) relies in part on the availability and content of maternity care providers' data. The population coverage and linkage possibilities that these data provide make for a yet untapped potential. Although vBI is a complex phenomenon best measured with dedicated instruments, we argue that maternity care providers' data could contribute to enhance our knowledge of the manifestations and frequency of vBI, and allow for analyses across different sub-groups of the population. Looking into the German standardized perinatal data, we investigate which variables are relevant to vBI-related research, and how complete their reporting is.
Methods: First, we analyse state-of-the-art frameworks and recommendations, and, for each vBI-related domain, we search for and list corresponding variables in the perinatal data which could contribute to a better understanding of vBI issues. Second, we use an example and analyse the content of perinatal data obtained between 2013 and 2016 in the context of the BaBi birth cohort study set in Bielefeld, Germany. We use descriptive statistics to assess the completeness of the data.
Results: The vBI-related variables can be classified in three main categories: discrimination based on specific patient socio-demographic attributes (e.g., height and weight to calculate BMI before pregnancy, foreign origin), indication for medical interventions (i.e., medicalization-related variables: indication for cesarean sections and induction), and supportive care, in particular the mobilization dimension (e.g., continuous fetal heartbeat monitoring). The data analyses included 876 births, of which 601 were vaginal birth. We found poor reporting on demographic variables in terms of completeness. Medicalization and mobilization variables are better documented, although limited in scope.
Conclusions: Putting more emphasis on the completeness of standardized data could increase their potential for vBI-related research. Perinatal data alone are insufficient to assess vBI, but a broader, theory-informed discussion of indicators to be included in standardized datasets would contribute to capturing the different aspects of integrity violation in a more systematic way and expand the evidence-base on different types of vBI.
Introduction: The location of residence is a factor possibly contributing to social inequalities and emerging evidence indicates that it already affects perinatal development. The underlying pathways remain unknown; theory-based and hypothesis-driven analyses are lacking. To address these challenges, we aim to establish to what extent small-area characteristics contribute to low birth weight (LBW), independently of individual characteristics. First, we select small-area characteristics based on a conceptual model and measure them. Then, we empirically analyse the impact of these characteristics on LBW.
Material and methods: Individual data were provided by the birth cohort study “Health of infants and children in Bielefeld/Germany.” The sample consists of 892 eligible women and their infants distributed over 80 statistical districts in Bielefeld. Small-area data were obtained from local noise maps, emission inventory, Google Street View and civil registries. A linear multilevel analysis with a two-level structure (individuals nested within statistical districts) was conducted.
Results: The effects of the selected small-area characteristics on LBW are small to non-existent, no significant effects are detected. The differences in proportion of LBW based on marginal effects are small, ranging from zero to 1.1%. Newborns from less aesthetic and subjectively perceived unsafe neighbourhoods tend to have higher proportions of LBW.
Discussion: We could not find evidence for negative effects of small-area factors on LBW, but our study confirms that obtaining adequate sample size, reliable measure of exposure and using available data for operationalisation of the small-area context represent the core challenges in this field of research.