Abstract
Our objective was to examine the role of structural racism and economic disadvantage in perinatal health inequities using the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Cohort. Participants' addresses were linked to area-level measures of life expectancy, education, unemployment, health insurance, jail rate, segregation, and housing cost burden. We created absolute measures to represent economic disadvantage and relative measures comparing values for Black or Latinx people to White people in the same area to represent structural racism. We used quantile G-computation to estimate the effects of a one-quartile increase in all exposures simultaneously on fetal growth and gestational age measures. A one-quartile increase in economic disadvantage was associated with a reduction in birthweight [(-25.65 grams, 95% CI (-45.83, -5.48)], but not gestational age [-0.02 weeks, 95% CI (-0.13, 0.09)]. With a one-quartile increase in Latinx-White structural racism, we observed reductions in birthweight [-80.83, 95% CI (-143.42, -18.23)] among Latinx participants. A one-quartile increase in Black-White structural racism was weakly associated with lower birthweight among Black participants [-15.70, 95% CI (-82.89, 51.48)] but was associated with higher birthweight among White participants [57.47, 95% CI (13.26, 101.67)]. Our findings suggest co-occurring forms of structural inequity likely influence racialized disparities in fetal growth outcomes.