Socioeconomic Status and Low Birth Weight, Shahroud 2017

Background: Low birth weight (LBW) is one of the most important health indicators and a major cause of infant mortality. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of family socioeconomic status (SES) on LBW in Shahroud. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 4242 neonates were included in the study. The data gathering tool was used as a valid and reliable questionnaire. electronic records of the household’s health profile were also employed to complete the data collection form. Determinants of household’s SES were 10 economic factors, including household assets such as car ownership, computer and Internet access, microwave, cooking place, the number of residential house rooms, type of heating and cooling equipment, bathroom in the house, mother’s history of foreign travel-tourism. In terms of the social factors, there were 4 variables: Father's education, mother's education, father's job and the number of children. The logistic regression model was adopted by controlling the confounding variables to investigate the effect of socioeconomic factors on LBW. Results: Among the subjects, 312 (7.4 %) of them were LBW (CI 95%=6.6-8.1). The chance of low birth weight in neonates with the low socioeconomic group was 2.6 times more than high-class group (95% CI=3.47-2.01). Conclusions: The quality of health services and the improvement of the socio-economic situation must be taken into account to reduce the inequity of LBW between poor and rich family neonates.