BACKGROUND Prenatal care is considered to be an important component of primary health care. Our study compared prenatal care utilization and rates of adverse birth outcomes for mothers from low- and higher-income areas of New Mexico between 1989 and 1999. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Prenatal care indicators included the number of prenatal care visits and the first month of prenatal care. B...

Post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety symptoms are common outcomes following earthquakes, and may persist for months and years. This study systematically examined the impact of neighbourhood damage exposure and average household income on psychological distress and functioning in 600 residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, 4-6 months after the fatal February, 2011 earthquake. Participan...

This DataWatch examines the potential impact of socioeconomic differences on rates of hospitalization, based on patterns of hospital use in New York City in 1988. The research suggests that lack of timely and effective outpatient care may lead to higher hospitalization rates in low-income areas. For certain conditions identified as ambulatory care sensitive, hospitalization rates were higher in...

BACKGROUND Studies from high income countries (HIC) have generally shown higher osteoporotic fracture rates in urban areas than rural areas. Low bone mineral density (BMD) increases susceptibility to fractures. This review aimed to assess whether urbanicity is consistently associated with lower BMD globally. METHOD Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Global Health (-April 2013) were searched for articl...

It is routine to control for “average” income when assessing the independent eVect of income inequality on health, but authors have used diVerent measures, for example, percentage poverty, per capita or mean income, and median income. 4 However, as the distribution of income in a population is always positively skewed (that is, a long thin tail for the few with high incomes), the median income ...