Funded research

Bridget Goosby, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan; Jacob E. Cheadle, Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Research Fellow, University of Michigan

Low Birth Weight, Social Confounders, and Life Chances from Childhood through Early Adulthood

Abstract

Children born into different social conditions have different life chances resulting from both the opportunity structures available to them and differing developmental trajectories resulting from disparities in the family, school, and community environments wherein their development takes place. Every year about 8 percent of children face additional risks associated with their weight at birth.

This study examines the relationship of low birth weight (LBW; birth < 2500g) status with schooling and developmental outcomes to address longitudinally (1) how LBW children are faring with respect to their NBW school and classmates and (2) how LBW children develop relative to their NBW siblings. In the first analysis, we compare LBW and NBW children's teacher assessments of children’s social and academic competencies, scores on achievement tests, and parent rated health using multiple waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class 1998-1999 (ECLS-K). School and teacher fixed-effects ensure that birth weight disparity estimates reflect gaps between children in the same educational environments. We explore the differences between LBW and VLBW status children relative to their NBW peers accounting for the school environment and associations due to important social confounders like poverty which are related both to risk for LBW and children's cognitive and behavioral assessments. Similarly, using multiple waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we construct a discordant birth weight sample of siblings, using family fixed-effects to adjust for family-specific time invariant factors. These analyses examine the extent to which discordant birth weight status children vary in their developmental trajectories from childhood through adolescence and whether these differences persist into early adulthood.

Since birth weight is an important characteristic of population health, (1) understanding how LBW children fare relative to their NBW peers and (2) isolating the birth weight effect from the social confounders correlated with birth weight provides information both on birth weight, and the extent to which birth weight proxies for social disadvantage. In order to effectively implement appropriate policies that target populations in need, it is important to understand the nature of the need and the extent to which a characteristic like birth weight represents a meaningful status in its own right, or surrogates for one reflective of social disadvantage more generally.

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