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Multiple Maternities and Neighborhood Income

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Marcelo Luis Urquia*
Affiliation:
Centre for Research in Inner City Health, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada. marcelo.urquia@utoronto.ca
John William Frank
Affiliation:
Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Population and Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Richard Henry Glazier
Affiliation:
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Canada.
Rahim Moineddin
Affiliation:
Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
*
*Address for correspondence: Marcelo Luis Urquia, Centre for Research in Inner City Health, St Michael's Hospital, 70 Richmond St E., 4th floor, Toronto, ON M5C 1N8 Canada.

Abstract

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This study aimed to examine differences in multiple maternities by neighborhood-income levels in Toronto, Canada. Hospital records were used to perform secondary analysis of 144,731 maternities resulting in single or multiple infants live-born to mothers residing in the City of Toronto 1996 to 2001. The independent variable was neighborhood income, defined as mean household neighborhoodincome quintiles. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to compute adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Differences by income levels were found in twin maternities but not in higher order maternities. Twin maternities were more likely to occur in the richest neighborhood-income quintile compared to the rest of the population (AOR: 1.25, 95% CI: 1.10-1.41), after adjustment for potential confounders. The positive association between high neighborhood income and twin maternities found in this study suggests that the richest neighborhoods select families whose characteristics pose them at increased risk of having twins. Further studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanisms leading to socioeconomic differences in multiple births.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007