group synthesis

Religion, Poverty, and Politics: Their Impact on Women’s Reproductive Health Outcomes

Background

This study was preformed because the researches realized that the united stated spends more than any other nation on health care and they were still ranked 39th in the world for infant mortality rates they stated that these rates were 6.5 per 1000 live births in 2008 (Kimball, Wessner, Pg. 598). The researchers compared social determinants of health (SDH) which included state-level voting preferences, socioeconomic indicators: child poverty and GINI (income inequality), and religiosity scores and they compared that to women's reproductive health outcomes which included: infant mortality rates, abortion rates, and teen birth rates. They compared the SDH and the women's reproductive outcomes to see what was causing health disparities in the United states.

Research summary

The researchers collected data from secondary data sets, to look at the dependent variables which were: IMR, abortion rates, teen pregnancies, and the SDH which were the independent variables these included: state-level voting preferences, socioeconomic indicators: child poverty and GINI, and religiosity scores. The researches stated that they did not use race as a SDH because economic status has a bigger impact on health outcomes than race/ ethnicity (Kimball, Wessner, Pg. 600). the researchers chose their sample size of per 1000 and made a state by state map to show the results. they did this for religiosity, child poverty, GINI, Republicans in Congressional Delegations, and Presidential Election Results. Then they made a chart to show the effect that Social Determinants had on Women’s Health Outcomes.

Results

The researchers found that women’s reproductive health outcomes are different based on the SDH and the state. The researchers found that the main correlations were: teen births at a rate of 41.5 per 1,000 which was associated with child poverty. IMRs varied from a rate of 3.9 per 1,000 to 10.0 per 1,000 depending on the state the main association was religiosity, and abortions at a rate of 19.6 per 1,000 were associated with GINI and presidential election results.

Implications

As nurses we need to be aware of these correlations and educate our patients on what we can do to prevent negative reproductive outcomes. IMR are clearly too high in the unites states and we need to do all that we possibly can to lower these rates.

Remaining questions

The researchers stated that the results vary from state to state, why is this? What can the researches do to help fic this problem of women's reproductive outcomes?