Daijiworld Media Network - Washington

Washington, Sep 17: Racial and socioeconomic disparities in maternal cardiovascular health may become more pronounced with age, according to a large US study that analysed nearly 1.9 million births in California.

The cross-sectional study examined 1,880,400 births, including live births and stillbirths at 20 weeks of gestation or later, recorded between 2007 and 2019. Researchers assessed maternal age alongside race, ethnicity, education and insurance status.

The study found that hypertensive disorders of pregnancy occurred in 14.2 per cent of births among Black women, compared with 9.2 per cent among White women. Non-optimal cardiovascular health before pregnancy was also more common among Black women, affecting 60.9 per cent compared with 45.2 per cent of White women.

Researchers found that cardiometabolic risks increased more sharply with age among Black women across socioeconomic groups. Among college-educated Black women, every five-year increase in age was associated with a 27 per cent higher risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Among White women with a high-school education or less, the corresponding increase was 23 per cent.

The disparity was also observed in chronic hypertension. Among Black women with a high-school education or less, every five-year increase in age was associated with a 79 per cent increase in risk, compared with 41 per cent among college-educated White women.

The researchers said the findings are consistent with the concept of “weathering”, which proposes that cumulative exposure to social and structural adversity may contribute to accelerated deterioration in health over the course of a person’s life.

However, the study was observational and cross-sectional and therefore cannot establish that socioeconomic or structural factors directly caused the differences in cardiovascular outcomes.

The researchers said maternal cardiovascular inequalities need to be examined through the combined influence of age, race and socioeconomic circumstances. They suggested that interventions addressing structural determinants and chronic stressors earlier in life could help reduce persistent disparities in maternal cardiovascular health.