Factors Associated With Employment Status Before and During Pregnancy: Implications for Studies of Pregnancy Outcomes

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Ind Med
• Personal Author:
  Rocheleau, Carissa M. ; Bertke, Stephen J. ; Lawson, Christina C. ; Romitti, Paul A. ; Desrosiers, Tania A. ; Agopian, A.J. ; Bell, Erin ; Gilboa, Suzanne M.
• Corporate Authors:
  The National Birth Defects Prevention Study
• Description:
  Background
  
  Potential confounding or effect modification by employment status is frequently overlooked in pregnancy outcome studies.
  
  Methods
  
  To characterize how employed and non-employed women differ, we compared demographics, behaviors, and reproductive histories by maternal employment status for 8,343 mothers of control (non-malformed) infants in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (1997–2007) and developed a multivariable model for employment status anytime during pregnancy and the 3 months before conception.
  
  Results
  
  Sixteen factors were independently associated with employment before or during pregnancy, including: maternal age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, pregnancy intention, periconceptional/first trimester smoking and alcohol consumption, and household income.
  
  Conclusions
  
  Employment status was significantly associated with many common risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes. Pregnancy outcome studies should consider adjustment or stratification by employment status. In studies of occupational exposures, these differences may cause uncontrollable confounding if non-employed women are treated as unexposed instead of excluded from analysis.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Adult Article Body Mass Index Confounding Factors (epidemiology) Employment Female Healthy Worker Effect Humans Income Maternal Age Occupational Diseases Occupational Exposure Pregnancy Pregnancy Complications Pregnancy Outcome Risk Factors Smoking United States Young Adult

  More +
• Source:
  Am J Ind Med. 60(4):329-341
• Pubmed ID:
  28299820
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7191326
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U01 DD000492/DD/NCBDD CDC HHS/United States ; U01 DD001035/DD/NCBDD CDC HHS/United States
• Volume:
  60
• Issue:
  4
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:0de98e0a47ae50d925a05213af4480bb0a9e95bbf7d15423de5cbda780ccecad
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/87454/cdc_87454_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 420.22 KB ]