Sai Ma ^1*

¹ Johns Hopkins University

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sma{at}jhsph.edu.

	Abstract

Objectives. I sought to identify whether there were associations between paternal race/ethnicity and birth outcomes among infants with parents of different races/ethnicities.

Methods. Using the National Center for Health Statistics 2001 linked birth and infant death file, I compared birth outcomes of infants of White mothers and fathers of different races/ethnicities by matching and weighting racial/ethnic groups following a propensity scoring approach so other characteristics were distributed identically. I applied the same analysis to infants of Black parents and infants with a Black mother and White father.

Results. Variation in risk factors and outcomes was found in infants of White mothers by paternal race/ethnicity. After propensity score weighting, the disparities in outcomes by paternal or parental race/ethnicity could be largely attributed to nonracial parental characteristics. Infants whose paternal race/ethnicity was unreported on their birth certificates had the worst outcomes.

Conclusions. The estimated effect of maternal race/ethnicity on birth outcomes was more than 3 times as large as that of paternal race/ethnicity after I controlled for all covariates. Unreported paternal race/ethnicity had a strong association with outcomes, which might be a source of bias in existing data and a marker for identifying infants at risk.

Key Words: Child and Adolescent Health, Birth Outcomes, Race/Ethnicity