title: Modeling maternal weight and height in studies of pregnancy outcome among Hispanic women.
abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate methods of using maternal weight and height in studies of pregnancy outcome for Hispanic women. Reference anthropometric data came from 1166 Mexican-American women in the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HHANES). Prospective data on maternal anthropometry and infant birth weight came from 1362 Hispanic women in the Kaiser-Permanente Contraceptive Drug Study and 12,786 women in the Guatemalan Cooperative Perinatal Study. Five methods of standardizing weight for height were evaluated, including power-type indexes and weights relative to HHANES reference data. In linear- and logistic-regression analyses, these methods were practically interchangeable, with no evident advantage of Hispanic reference data. However, if weight was not height-standardized the effect of height was underestimated; if height was omitted and weight was not height-standardized the effects of weight were exaggerated. Therefore, analyses of pregnancy outcome should include both height and height-standardized weight.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Flegal
authors.forename: L J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Launer
authors.forename: B I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Graubard
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kestler
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Villar
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D006166:Guatemala; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D008800:Mexico / Q000208:ethnology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012907:Smoking